Emil Nolde: Meer (blau-violett mit orange-farbenen Wolken)

Emil Nolde: Meer (blau-violett mit orange-farbenen Wolken)
NOLDE, EMIL
1867 Nolde - 1956 Seebüll

Title: Meer (blau-violett mit orange-farbenen Wolken).
Date: 1930/35.
Technique: Watercolour on Japan.
Measurement: 29 x 46cm.
Notation: Signed lower right: Nolde.
Frame/Pedestal: Framed.

This work comes with a copy of a photo certificate from Prof. Dr. Martin Urban, Emil and Ada Nolde Foundation, Seebüll, dated 14 May 1988, as well as a confirmation from the foundation dated 15 November 2024. It is registered there under the number Fr.A.837 and will be included in a future catalogue raisonné of watercolours and drawings.

Provenance:
- Private collection, Munich
- Hauswedell & Nolte, Hamburg, 272nd auction, 10/11 June 1988, lot 976
- Private collection, North Rhine-Westphalia (acquired from the previous owner)

Exhibitions:
- Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte Münster, 1991/92

Literature:
- Exhibition catalogue Emil Nolde, Aquarelle und figürliche Radierungen, Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte Münster, Münster 1991/92, p. 160, cat. no. 62, ill.

- Wonderful example of Nolde's ability to render impressions of nature as pure expressive abstraction
- Colouristic spectacle with dramatic contrasts
- Large-format watercolour, in which Nolde's outstanding painterly technique comes into its own


The young Emil Hansen
When Emil Nolde put this watercolour on paper in the early 1930s, he was already a long-established and celebrated artist. Born into a farming family in Schleswig, Emil Hansen managed to obtain an excellent artistic education in Munich and Paris through his own efforts. In 1902, on the occasion of his marriage, he took the name of his hometown, "Nolde". Financially, the first few years, during which he commuted between Schleswig and Berlin with his Danish wife Ada, were meagre, but Nolde quickly became an "artist's artist". Recognised and appreciated by his colleagues and with an excellent network, collectors, gallery owners and museum directors soon took notice of Emil Nolde, and by the 1920s he was so successful that he was able to build a large house in Seebüll.
He saw himself as the quintessential German, Nordic painter who shaped early 20th-century painting with his powerful art. He was therefore hit hard by the stigma of being labelled "degenerate" in 1937, followed by a professional ban in 1941. Emil Nolde withdrew to his house in Seebüll. The post-war period rehabilitated Emil Nolde and celebrated his expressive and colourful paintings and watercolours. Young artists of the post-war years were influenced by him. The posthumous inclusion of Emil Nolde in the documenta exhibitions in 1959 and 1964 shows the importance of his position in Germany.



Watercolours
In Emil Nolde's oeuvre, watercolour has been an equally important medium alongside oil painting since the 1910s. Around this time, he began using Japanese paper for the first time, which absorbs watercolours more directly and behaves very differently under the artist's hand than the papers he had used previously. He experimented, choosing the colours with which to cover the wet paper without sketching first, and allowing them to develop on the sheet. The painter used “water colours” to give his sky and lake watercolours in particular an inner thematic correspondence. Nolde, who is deeply rooted in his North German homeland, observes the rapidly changing landscape here: changing times of day and seasons bring plays of light and colour, which the painter picks up and accentuates. The painter determines their form, but allows the wet medium on the damp paper to take on a life of its own. In Nolde's watercolours, however, colour is always also a carrier of emotion.



Sky spectacle
Without any internal drawing, with which Emil Nolde often accentuated his watercolours after they had completely dried, this sheet emerges with fresh, vibrant colours. A delicate horizontal brushstroke separates sky and earth as a horizon line. Without a beach, as if on the high seas, the view is focused on the spectacle of nature. The predominantly dark blue water surface is enlivened in a few larger areas by violet and light blue reflections of the sky. The sky is the "star": orange, yellow and greenish areas are separated from each other by a violet blue that manifests itself towards the right edge of the picture. The colours remind the viewer of the northern lights. The North Sea sky appears in an almost tropical blaze of colour and captivates the astonished gaze. The block-like darkness on the right edge of the picture creates a counterbalance, but can also be perceived as ominous.

Alexandra Bresges-Jung


Estimated shipping costs for this lot:
Arrangement after the auction.



Explanations to the Catalogue

Emil Nolde
Germany
Die Brücke
Modern Art
1930s
Framed
Landscape
Works on paper
Watercolour