Heinrich Nauen
Sonnenblumen mit welker Kresse
Circa 1924
Oil on canvas 45.5 x 90.2 cm Framed. Signed 'H.Nauen.' in black lower left. - With two small, professional retouches.
This painting, which is very typical of the artist's late works, was created at a time when he had already been teaching at the Düsseldorf Art Academy for three years. Nauen painted a large number of floral still lifes, and it seems that he particularly enjoyed the sunflower motif. This painting is a harmonious blend of warm, nuanced shades of green, brown, orange and yellow. More light-coloured highlights and several darker shadow areas add an element of tension to the painting. In particular, the depiction of the sunflowers, with its bizarre, dancing shapes, is marked by a tangible expressiveness. At the same time the background was clearly applied in an impressionist-pointillist manner, adding a touch of balancing softness and sensitivity to the painting.
Catalogue Raisonné
Drenker-Nagels 553
Provenance
Museum am Ostwall, Dortmund (confiscated in 1937); Private possession, Rhineland
Literature
Carl Einstein, Die Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts, Berlin 1926, p. 528, illus. p. 494; Zeitschrift "Der Querschnitt", Jahrgang 5, 1925, illus. in: exhib. cat. Düsseldorf/Münster 1987 (Kunstmuseum/ Westfälisches Landesmuseum), Alfred Flechtheim. Sammler. Kunsthändler. Verleger. 1937. Europa vor dem 2. Weltkrieg, Cologne 1987, p. 130 (here titled "Sonnenblumen").