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PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION

1867-1956
GELBER BLUMENSTRAUCH (YELLOW FLOWERING SHRUB)

measurements
54.7 by 60cm.

alternate measurements
21 1/2 by 23 5/8 in.

Painted in 1906.

signed E. Nolde and dated 1906 (lower right); signed E. Nolde and titled on the stretcher

oil on canvas

PROVENANCE

Acquired by the grandfather of the present owners in Germany in 1910

EXHIBITED

Flensburg, Gewerbemuseum and Hamburg, Kunstsalon Clematis, Künstlergruppe Brücke, 1907, (Flensburg not numbered), no. 38 (Hamburg)

LITERATURE

Artist's Handlist, 1907, no. 71
Artist's Handlist, 1910 a,b, no. 89
Artist's Handlist, 1910 c, no. 90
Artist's Handlist, 1930, '1906 Gelber Blumenstrauch'
Martin Urban, Emil Nolde, Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil-Paintings, 1895-1914, London, 1987, vol. I, no. 175

NOTE

Gelber Blumenstrauch is a beautiful rendering of one of the most significant subject matters of Emil Nolde's ~uvre. Executed during the summer of 1906, the present work is one of the first canvases from a series of flower paintings created on the northern island of Alsen, where Emil and Ada Nolde moved to in 1903. There they rented a fisherman's cottage which became their permanent home for more than a decade.

Peter Vergo wrote about this period in Nolde's work: 'The majority of his paintings created during the summer months of 1906 and 1907 show the gardens of his near-neighbours, gardens that in summer were ablaze with colour. These were some of the earliest pictures which induced him to express at least guarded satisfaction with his own independent development as a colourist' (P. Vergo, Emil Nolde (exhibition catalogue), Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, 1996, p. 118).

The turning point in Nolde's career came when Karl Schmidt-Rottluff's came to stay in Alsen in 1906. Schmidt-Rottluff, who was sixteen years younger than Nolde and a member of the influential German Expressionist group Die Brücke, saw an exhibition of works by Nolde at the Galerie Arnold in Dresden in January 1906 and approached the artist to join the group. Nolde accepted the invitation to become a member and invited Schmidt-Rottluff to Alsen in June of the same year. Inspired by the wilderness-like nature of their new surroundings and far removed from city life, both artists developed a new freer way of painting. The outcome was a new bold use of brilliant colours and a virtuosity of brushwork in Nolde's and Schmidt-Rottluff's works.

The appeal of untamed nature and the fascination with colour were driving forces for the German Expressionist artists. Nolde's intense preoccupation with the subject of flowers and his emphasis on colour also reflect his continuing interest in the art of Van Gogh. The strong, primary tones, the bold brushstrokes and the magnificent texture of the surface in Gelber Blumenstrauch undoubtedly demonstrate a reference to the great Dutch post-impressionist.

It was during this time that Nolde not only began to use colour as a vital tool of expression in his work, but also started his important series of flower and garden paintings. Gelber Blumenstrauch is one of the first paintings the artist completed during the seminal summer in Alsen in 1906. Nolde developed a passion for planting and designing flower gardens, and the beauty of this subject matter became an inspiration for the artist throughout his outstanding career.