Galerie Utermann was founded in 1853 and is the eldest family owned German gallery with specialization in Classical modernism, Postwar and Contemporary art.
For more than 50 years, Galerie Utermann has been committed to dealing with German Expressionist and Classic Modern Art and ranks as a leading gallery in this field. The focus is set on contributing to and building outstanding art collections.
Emil NOLDE
(1867 – 1956)
Im Herbst
1910
Oil on burlap
50 x 77.5 cm
Bottom left signed: “E. Nolde”
Catalogue raisonné: Urban 381
Provenance
Estate of the artist
Exhibitions/literature
– Nolde Stiftung Seebüll, 1968
– Emil Nolde. Der Zauber des kleinen Formats. 64th annual exhibition
– 2020. Nolde Stiftung Seebüll, 2020, Exh-cat. pp. 32
When Emil Nolde moved to the secluded Baltic Sea island of Alsen in 1903, he was still searching for his own style.
On Alsen, he discovered colour: ‘The painter had found himself; colours had become his language. As difficult as painting had been for me at first, I now moved from painting to painting with a sense of freedom and joy.’
In the autumn of 1910, Nolde painted a series of 14 works, mostly depicting stormy autumn seas.
The painting ‘Im Herbst’ (In autumn) also belongs to this series.
The contrasting elements of sky and water intertwine to form a turbulent natural spectacle. The painter has captured the mood directly and impulsively: “Through the window, my eyes roamed freely across the sea, and nothing could be seen but the water and the clouds […].“ The complementary contrast of the colours heightens the dynamic expression.
The foreground takes up the autumnal colours of ochre, orange and yellow with splashes of violet; from the left, a green headland pushes restlessly into the picture. On the left, a bright yellow streak of light leads to the water, which is rendered with sparse brushstrokes in shades of blue. Here too, ochre and violet are incorporated as reflections from the sky. The restless sky spans the sea and the shore. A dark violet dominates the upper edge, reappearing as contrasting patches within the ragged yellow clouds. Light blue patches and, above all, the yellow bring light to the sky, illuminating the horizon. The dynamic, impasto painting style corresponds to the ragged clouds, the restless water and the choppy beach in the foreground. In the autumn of 1911, Nolde continued the theme with a further four paintings.
Nolde’s neighbours, who knew little of art, viewed the works with bewilderment, saying that nature looked different; yet the girl next door, Lisbeth Jäger, defended the painter: “It’s not meant to look like that; it’s a painting, after all.” The child intuitively grasped Nolde’s intention. The art critic Botho Graef confirmed this on 21 June 1911 in the Jenaische Zeitung: “[…] the main thing is the emotional tension with which the artist experienced the spectacle of nature, and which drove those resounding tones of colour from within him.”
(Quoted in Emil Nolde. Der Zauber des kleinen Formats. 64th annual exhibition 2020, edited by Christian Ring, Nolde Stiftung Seebüll, 2020, p. 33)
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