EMIL NOLDE (1867 Nolde/Schleswig - 1956 Seebü... Lot n° 92

Sailor and three steamers Etching with line and tone etching on Van Gelder zone velin with watermark. 1910. 31 x 41 cm (44 x 59,8 cm). Signed "Emil Nolde", inscribed "II.17" and dedicated. Schiefler/Mosel R 140 II. Splendid early impression of the rare sheet with strong blacks, fine plate tone and in places finely drawn platemark. Print with very wide margins, above with the scoop margin. One of at least 34 copies according to Schiefler/Mosel. In 1910 Nolde produced the series of etchings with motifs from the port of Hamburg, which form one of the highlights of his overall print oeuvre. Nolde traveled to Hamburg in February for the opening of his exhibition at the Commeter Gallery and remained in the port city for another three weeks; during this period of "immersion of the whole man in work and tension" (Emil Nolde, Mein Leben, Cologne 1976, p. 154), he produced a series of 19 etchings, woodcuts, drawings, and several paintings. In the technique of etching, Nolde found an adequate means of expression for his art, which was based on the effect of color, and which unfolded its effect in the graphic art primarily through the use of the etching technique in a dramatic interplay of black and white. Thus, Nolde virtuously uses lines and hatching in a composition in which the dark black of the sailboat contrasts with the white parts of the sky and the sea. Numbered as the 17th print of the II state of Ada Nolde and with dedication of the artist to "Herr Münchhausen in Freundschaft/Weihnachten 1912 E.N."