EMIL NOLDE

DOLLS, MASKS AND IDOLS

Emil Nolde’s still lifes featuring exotic figures form a fascinating group of works from between 1911 and 1929. The artist began by painting from studies in the Berliner Völkerkundemuseum, before moving on to use his own collection of cultural-historical objects as models. Nolde’s voyage to the South Pacific from 1913–14 saw him acquire many objects, and it also took him to New Hanover Island, part of Papua New Guinea in the Bismarck Archipelago. The Ahlers Pro Arte Foundation is pleased to present around thirty paintings by Nolde, alongside numerous watercolours, drawings and printed works, made possible thanks to the foundation’s close cooperation with the Nolde Stiftung Seebüll, prominent museums and private collections. Selected objects drawn from Nolde’s private collection also feature in the exhibition, which travelled to Hamburg to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Ernst Barlach Haus.

Nolde’s Figure Paintings

An ‘almost childish penchant’ had consumed the painter, even in the years before his journey to the South Pacific. ‘I needed small figures and objects for my still lifes. I bought them’, Nolde states, ‘here and there, more than I could have needed. A small collection began to accumulate.’ His acquisitions were neither systematic nor directed by one specific interest: he was guided only by what personally fascinated him, which he then absorbed into his collection. The collection thus included figures made from simple plaster as well as from colourful glazed stone, folk art from his native region, featuring some pieces from his family home, valuable porcelain collections from Russia, Greco-Roman and Etruscan antiques, medieval sculptures of the Madonna and of saints, ancient Egyptian, African, Indian and early American pieces, precious Chinese porcelain figures, and even Japanese theatre masks.

A separate part of the exhibition is devoted to the Uli and Malanggan figures, shrunken heads, masks and other objects that Nolde brought back from his voyage to the South Pacific in 1913–14. They were a constant part of his surroundings, be it in the Berlin atelier in which he lived, on the island of Als at Utenwarf or at his house in Seebüll. ‘I also painted harmless, simple pictures,’ he explained, ‘and particularly enjoyed painting still lifes from the figures and masks in my cherished small collection: ordering and grouping them, often adding a few flowers in a free, artistic manner.’ Yet the artist’s judgement is not entirely to be trusted: his still lifes are far from being harmless pictures that could be classified as ‘nature morte’. Instead, Nolde sought to paint a soul into the exotic figures and masks that were part of the scenery of his everyday life. Far from being merely aesthetic arrangements, his pictures are instead elementary, enigmatic encounters that are brought to life by his poetic touch. Soulless figures are transformed into secretive beings that immediately draw the viewer in. Werner Haftmann describes an ‘enchantingly transformed world of appearances’ with a ‘strange, magical tone’.