(Nolde, Schleswig 1867–1956 Seebüll)
Sonnenblumen mit kleinen Blüten (rot und violet) – sun flowers with small blossoms (red and violet), c. 1930, signed Nolde, watercolour on thin handwoven Japan paper, 35.8 x 45.1 cm, framed

Photo certificate:
Prof. Dr. Manfred Reuther, Seebüll, 11.2.2016

The work is registered at the Emil and Ada Nolde Foundation Seebüll, Neukirchen, with no A.Fremd.3524

Provenance:
Private Collection, USA

“Colours, the painter’s material: colours as they live, crying and laughing, dreams and happiness, hot and holy, like ballads of love and eroticism, like songs and wonderful hymns! Colours are vibrations like those of silver bells and bronze gongs, announcing happiness, passion and love, soul, blood and death.”
Emil Nolde

Watercolour played a very important role in Emil Nolde’s oeuvre, throughout all his creative phases. The colour is freed from the constraints of form and he experiments with different painting techniques, and with different types of paper, too. Emil Nolde enjoys the chance composition of colours, the coincidental creation of an image which comes about through the multi-layered application of the wet colour on the reverse side of the paper. Despite all his experimentation, Emil Nolde asserts that “technique is only technique, it should not be overestimated!”
He did not paint his first floral watercolours until 1918. They range from depictions of brightly coloured single flowers to carefully arranged still lifes and dynamic, tightly packed carpets of colours and blossoms. The immediate, empathetic experience of nature, of the plants growing in their natural environment, was chosen as the main subject in the flower images and the garden pictures. In 1928, he wrote to his friend Hans Fehr that he was particularly fascinated by sunflowers that were taller than a person and that forced him to tilt his head back so he could admire their splendour.
The watercolour “Sonnenblumen mit kleinen Blüten” (“Sunflowers with small blossoms”) captivates the viewer with the luminous intensity of the colours of the three large sunflowers, painted in yellow and orange and flanked by the smaller red and purple blossoms. Emil Nolde outlines the shape of the individual flowers almost as if he is sketching, drawing the viewer close to the flowers. The bright yellows, oranges, greens, purples and reds are applied to the thin Japanese paper using the wet-on-wet technique. His focus on the flower heads heightens the extraordinary intensity of the colours, and the power and effect of the colour becomes the focal point of his interest. The process is akin to the colours being shown off on a stage, with everything else becoming secondary.