Emil Nolde

(German, 1867–1956)

Emil Nolde was a German Expressionist known for his paintings and prints of flowers, landscapes, and folklore. The vibrancy of color and rough-hewn mark-making Nolde used in works such as Stormy Sea (1930), bore the influence of Vincent van Gogh. “There is silver blue, sky blue, and thunder blue. Every color holds within it a soul, which makes me happy or repels me, and which acts as a stimulus,” the artist once mused. Born Emil Hansen on August 7, 1867 in Nolde, Germany (present-day Germany), he was raised in a family of farmers in a rural area by the sea. Expected to join the family farm, Nolde instead pursued a career in furniture carving before beginning to paint. In 1906, while in Berlin he briefly joined the Die Brücke Expressionist group, which included his friend Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. He would go on to exhibit with both the Berlin Secession and Wassily Kandinsky’s Der Blaue Reiter group. During World War II, the Nazi regime, of which Nolde was an outspoken supporter, categorized him as a “degenerate” artist, though he continued to paint throughout the war unfazed. The artist died on April 15, 1956 in Seebüll, Germany at the age of 88. His works are presently held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Kunstmuseum Basel, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Albertina in Vienna.