Lot 65 D

Threateningly dark clouds tower above a wide bay. The wind-whipped water is driven on to the deserted shore in large waves. This watercolour entitled “Marschlandschaft” was probably painted in Utenwarf, not far from Nolde’s home town of Tondern (now Tønder) in western Schleswig. That is where Ada and Emil Nolde had purchased a farmhouse in 1913, which they were able to move into in 1916, following its conversion and renovation. Before the Noldes settled more permanently in Utenwarf, they had often spent the summer months on the idyllic island of Als on the other side of the peninsula, east of Denmark. Nolde made a conscious decision to definitively return to the substantially more rugged North Sea coast in Frisia: “Als is very pretty, but it was just too mild, charming and idyllic for us. I was yearning for lofty and free air, for an austere and strong beauty, like that which the western coast, with its broad expanse of sky and the clouds above the marshes and water, provides with particular extravagance in the harsh seasons” (cited in: Martin Urban (ed.), Emil Nolde. Mein Leben, Köln 1976, p. 312). This landscape was of existential importance for Nolde’s art; it inspired and challenged him to continuously create new oil paintings and watercolours.