Edited by Ulrich Luckhardt, Christian Ring. Text by Caroline Dieterich, Daniel J. Schreiber, Roman Zieglgänsberger.
Emil Nolde (1867–1956) is famous for his dramatic ocean views and colorful flower gardens, but his love of the fantastical and grotesque has received less attention. Yet it is clear from his autobiography and his letters that they had a significant impact on his art. Alongside his first oil painting, “Bergriesen” (“Mountain Giants,” 1895–96), his alpine postcards of this period, in which the Swiss mountains appear as bizarre human physiognomies, also convey his fascination with the fantastical. His rejection of realism in favor of a grotesque, alternative world can be seen throughout his oeuvre, from its beginnings to the Grotesken (1905) and watercolors from 1918–19, to the years under the Nazis when he was forbidden to practice his profession. This catalog, which includes works never before shown, is also the first to emphasize this fascinating side of the great painter and water-colorist.
Featured image is reproduced from 'Emil Nolde: The Grotesques.
STATUS: Out of stock
Temporarily out of stock pending additional inventory.
FROM THE BOOK
Emil Nolde, quoted in "The Grotesques"
The portfolio of my etched Phantasien [Fantasies] was produced in Berlin in 1905, over several weeks at night when everything was quiet and the street was still.
I worked, scratched, and etched, so that everything around me, laundry, wallpaper, clothes, suffered along with me. Spuk [Spook], Das junge Leben [Youthful Life], Werbung [Courtship], Lebensfreude [Joy in Life] are some of the titles that I had to invent for the prints, having already invented the motifs.… I was of the view that if an artist has created something very special, then every drawing and print collection will want to have it, and so my etchings employed free invention and technique. No one before me had used acid and metal in this way. Thus I dreamt, floating in hopes. Dürer knew how to engrave in copper, Rembrandt to etch drawn lines, Goya how to use aquatint. I didn’t wish to see my small plates compared to these great masters, only that their technical innovation be admired.
I placed the drawn and more or less covered blank copperplate in the poison bath, striving for the richly nuanced effects of chiaroscuro that pleased me especially. Proud and happy, full of hope, I sent my portfolio of small Phantasien [Fantasies] to every famous collection of drawings and prints; within fourteen days, all thirteen portfolios were in my possession again, returned with all sorts of comments.
“Most of these small freely fantastical sheets were produced in a quiet, remote corner of the house during the years when I was despised. They were given to friends for safekeeping; they could not be seen by eyes foreign to art. Most are studies for figural paintings, often grotesque and wild, natural or far removed from nature; I try all possibilities: the deliberate and the random, the understood and the felt.… The effect of these small images on the people here and there who have seen them is strange. Those foreign to art see them as jests, jokes, or grimaces, others leaf through them thoughtlessly, as if they were playing cards, and still other sensitive people look and look sitting before individual ones, unable to break away.” – Emil Nolde continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 9.5 x 12.25 in. / 176 pgs / 130 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $29.95 LIST PRICE: CANADA $39.95 ISBN: 9783775742832 PUBLISHER: Hatje Cantz AVAILABLE: 7/25/2017 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: Out of stock TERRITORY: NA LA
Published by Hatje Cantz. Edited by Ulrich Luckhardt, Christian Ring. Text by Caroline Dieterich, Daniel J. Schreiber, Roman Zieglgänsberger.
Emil Nolde (1867–1956) is famous for his dramatic ocean views and colorful flower gardens, but his love of the fantastical and grotesque has received less attention. Yet it is clear from his autobiography and his letters that they had a significant impact on his art. Alongside his first oil painting, “Bergriesen” (“Mountain Giants,” 1895–96), his alpine postcards of this period, in which the Swiss mountains appear as bizarre human physiognomies, also convey his fascination with the fantastical. His rejection of realism in favor of a grotesque, alternative world can be seen throughout his oeuvre, from its beginnings to the Grotesken (1905) and watercolors from 1918–19, to the years under the Nazis when he was forbidden to practice his profession. This catalog, which includes works never before shown, is also the first to emphasize this fascinating side of the great painter and water-colorist.
