Emil Nolde - Kopf einer Südseeinsulanerin nach rechts - image-1

Lot 209 D

Emil Nolde - Kopf einer Südseeinsulanerin nach rechts

Auction 1121 - overview Cologne
30.11.2018, 17:00 - Modern Art
Estimate: 60.000 € - 80.000 €

Emil Nolde

Kopf einer Südseeinsulanerin nach rechts
1914

Gouache, watercolour and brush and India ink on light brown fibrous rice straw paper 49.7 x 36.7 cm Framed under glass. Signed 'Nolde' in pencil lower right. - Minor marginal tears at the left corners, professionally backed. With traces of creasing related to the work process, a small addition to the upper right corner.

In 1913/1914 Emil Nolde took part in the “Medical-demographic German New Guinea Expedition” as a painter; his task was to record his visual impressions of this exceptional journey, and his wife Ada accompanied him. After travelling through Russia, Japan and China, they spent about half a year in New Guinea. There he created numerous quickly painted likenesses of its native inhabitants. The much admired white “Missus”, Ada Nolde, noted in her diary in April 1914: “[…] that women from the village of Possum had come in order to see [her]. Their heads were shaved bald and they were adorned with necklaces made of polished shells and grass skirts. When they saw me, they threw their hands over their faces and called out and were very amazed. […] As soon as one group was gone, another came, and because we said we wanted to visit their village in the afternoon, they ran home beaming and chattering.” (Ada Nolde, cited in Manfred Reuther, Nolde Südseereise, in: exhib. cat. Paul Gauguin, Emil Nolde und die Kunst der Südsee, Ingelheim 1997, p. 190).
For Nolde, his journey to the South Pacific would become a central event and would remain of lasting significance for both his fundamental understanding of art and his working technique as well as with regard to his attitude towards life. “Above all - in spite of all his disappointment - in his encounter with the native peoples' primal, unspoilt way of life, lived out in harmony with nature and their environment, he found a deep confirmation of his own original yearning and, at the same time, his artistic thinking and work.” (Manfred Reuther, “Zu der unbeschreiblich schönen, wilden Südseereise”, in: exhib. cat. Emil Nolde und die Südsee, Vienna/Munich, Neukirchen 2002, p. 13).

Certificate

With a certificate from Manfred Reuther, Stiftung Ada und Emil Nolde Seebüll, dated 4 November 2011 (copy). The work is registered in the foundation.

Provenance

Private collection, Berlin; Grisebach, Ausgewählte Werke 24 Nov. 2011, lot 14; Private collection, Rhineland