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Artist or Maker: 1867-1956
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Dimensions: 88 by 73cm.
34 5/8 by 28 3/4in.
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Provenance: Nolde-Stiftung, Seebüll
Siegfried Adler, Montagnola (1971)
Acquired by the present owner in 1972
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Exhibited: Flensburg, Städtisches Museum, Emil Nolde, 1950
Copenhagen, Slot Charlottenburg, Emil Nolde, 1958, no. 78
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Literature: Artist's Handlist, 1930: '1940 Flocks u. weiße Dahlien (Hochform)'
Martin Urban, Emil Nolde, Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil-Paintings, 1915-1951, London, 1990, vol. II, p. 491, no. 1221, illustrated
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Notes: The present work is a powerful example of Nolde's great series of flower paintings. His intensive preoccupation with this particular subject - in 1906 the artist had already painted the first picture of this series - has been suggested as a reflection of his continuing interest in the art of Van Gogh, which he encountered in exhibitions on the Dutch artist during the 1920s and early 1930s. The bright colours, the bold brushstrokes and the magnificent texture of the surface undoubtedly demonstrate a reference to the great Dutch post-impressionist, as well as evincing Nolde's emotional admiration of the beauties of nature. As he himself expressed it: "The blossoming colours of the flowers and the purity of those colours - I loved them. I loved the flowers and their fate: shooting up, blooming, radiating, glowing gladdening, bending, wilting, throwing away and dying." (quoted in Peter Selz, Emil Nolde (exhibition catalouge), The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1963, p.49).
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