Emil Nolde Lot n° 39

Emil Nolde Dahlias 1948 Oil on canvas. 88.5 x 67.6 cm. Framed. Signed 'Emil Nolde' in green lower right. - In very good condition with fresh colors. Urban 1314 Provenance Estate of the artist, Jolanthe Nolde, Heidelberg; since then in family possession North Rhine-Westphalia, most recently on permanent loan to the Brücke-Museum Berlin Exhibitions Kiel 1956 (Kunsthalle), Emil Nolde. Memorial Exhibition, Cat. No. 33 (dated 1939); Heidelberg 1958 (Kunstverein), Emil Nolde. Paintings, Watercolors, Prints. A private collection, cat. No. 15; Heidelberg 1969 (Kurpfälzisches Museum), Emil Nolde. Gemälde aus dem Besitz von Jolanthe Nolde, pp. 38f., with color illustrations; Berlin 2013 (Dependance der Stiftung Seebüll Ada und Emil Nolde), Emil Nolde's late love. The legacy to his wife Jolanthe, cat. No. 23; Berlin/Ravensburg 2016/2017 (Brücke-Museum/Kunstmuseum), Emil Nolde. The Painter, plate 68, with color illus.; Berlin 2017 (Brücke-Museum), 50 Jahre Brücke-Museum, without cat. The painting "Dahlias" from 1948 is one of the most beautiful and color-intensive flower paintings from Emil Nolde's late period. Like hardly any other flower piece from these years, it combines the completely autonomous use of color with a daring composition in which Nolde staged the individual blossoms in a large and two-dimensional way. Unique in its composition of flowers, the work has been exhibited many times and has an excellent provenance. In the summer of 1916, Ada and Emil Nolde had moved into the recently acquired farmhouse Utenwarf on the Wiedau not far from the Danish town of Tongern. They planted a large flower garden on the property surrounding the house, which they tended with expertise and love: "During the following summers, in addition to my artistic activities, we enjoyed working in our garden and on our small farm." (quoted from Emil Nolde. Mein Leben, Cologne 1976, p. 314). Many of Nolde's flower paintings originated in this garden. But unlike Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and Gabriele Münter, who usually painted their flowers standing in a vase, Nolde sat down with a stool in the middle of the beds and captured his flowers in their original surroundings. Most of them are identifiable, including the well-known sunflowers, poppies, irises, lilies, calla lilies, foxgloves and dahlias. He was always interested in the splendor of the full blooms and not - as with Lovis Corinth, for example - the faded flowers, which were still interpreted as a sign of transience at the beginning of the 20th century. Nolde chose dahlias blooming in early fall as the motif for his flower painting. This painting was probably also created in the middle of his garden, as narrow paths can be seen between the beds, leading their gardeners to the areas further back. Unlike in his early works, Nolde used the intensity of the colors, the rich yellow-orange on the left, the bright crimson opposite and the delicate violet in the background, here as a means of artistic expression. To further enhance the color effect, he also made use of the complementary contrasts of red-green and yellow-violet. Compositionally, the flowers fill the entire picture surface and are overlapped by the edges of the picture. With confident and color-soaked brushstrokes, he seems to depict the flowers as living beings whose beauty unfolds to the limits of the canvas: "These flower paintings are not meant to be pleasing, beautiful entertainment," writes Nolde, "no, I would so much like them to be more, to lift and move and give the viewer a full sound of life and human existence." (quoted from: Emil Nolde, exhib. cat. Galerie Thomas Munich, 2012, p. 52). The painting comes from the estate of Jolanthe Nolde (1921-2010), the painter's second wife. She deserves credit for having accompanied the establishment and development of the Seebüll Foundation with commitment and understanding for Nolde's artistic work.