Lot 64 D

Nolde initially realised this early, highly expressive portrait of a woman in the form of an ink drawing. He first captured the sitter’s physiognomy in sketchily loose, feathery brushstrokes and only afterwards did he use his characteristic watercolour technique to add colour to the drawing. The flowing swathes of colour and varying density of the watercolours furnish this likeness with its exceptional vitality. Although the violet tones of the blouse and background dominate the work’s colour scheme, the painter’s focus is on the nuanced development of the face. Interesting effects also result from the interplay between the materials of watercolour and ink, particularly in the sitter’s hair.
The work’s creation around 1907 places it in a dynamic period in which Nolde came into close contact with the Brücke painters and became acquainted with patrons and sources of artistic inspiration as important as Karl Ernst Osthaus, Gustav Schiefler and Edvard Munch, among others. It was in those years around 1907 that the defining lines of his artistic development were laid down: colour became his own extremely distinctive means of expression, and this is when he discovered that characteristic watercolour technique which would decisively shape his subsequent oeuvre.