EMIL NOLDE | Frau am kleinen Tisch (Woman at a Small Table)

Hans Fehr, Jena (acquired directly from the artist in 1909)

Sale: Kornfeld & Klipstein, Bern, June 1965, lot 775

Ernst C. Stiefel, New York (acquired at the above sale and sold: Christie's, London, December 9, 1997, lot 27)

Acquired at the above sale

Hagen, Museum Folkwang, Emil Nolde, 1907

Dresden, Städtisches Kunstausstellungsgebäude; Hamburg, Kunstverein; Kiel, Kunsthalle; Essen, Museum Folkwang & Wiesbaden, Nassauischer Kunstverein, Emil Nolde - Jubiläumsausstellung zum 60. Geburtstag (Jubilee Exhibition), 1927, A-edition no. 12 & B-edition no. 5

The artist's handlist, 1907, no. 72

The artist's handlist, 1910, A., B. no. 90; C. no. 91

The artist's handlist, 1930

Martin Urban, Emil Nolde, Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, 1895-1914, vol. I, London, 1987, no. 176, illustrated p. 173

Frau am kleinen Tisch is an intensely colorful interior scene from the height of Emil Nolde’s involvement with Die Brücke. The strong tones, bold brushstrokes and the magnificent texture of the surface of the present work undoubtedly demonstrate a reference to the paintings of Vincent van Gogh. Nolde had been exposed to the Dutch artist on several occasions and by 1904 there was a marked change in his works that reflect the influence of van Gogh’s distinct style. The post-Impressionist paintings of van Gogh, and in particular those of Paul Gauguin which were exhibited in Weimar in 1905, opened the expressive possibilities of color to Nolde. He quickly grasped the ways in which a heightened color palette and emphatic brushwork could intensify a composition and began to utilize color as the significant means of expression in his works. It is this expressive quality, using thick impasto to build an almost relief-like surface of paint, that marked Nolde out to his younger Brücke contemporaries such as Kirchner, Heckel and Schmidt-Rottluff, as a truly innovative artist. In 1906, the same year he painted Frau am kleinen Tisch, Nolde was invited to joined the Brücke group. The enthusiasm with which younger artists received his works is shown in the way they soon incorporated elements of his exuberant style—the dense richness of his palette and his idiosyncratic approach to painting—into their own work. It is works such as Frau am kleinen Tisch that gained Nolde a reputation as one of the pioneers of German Expressionism.