113 - Ernst Wilhelm Nay – Portrait of a Rider

Ernst Wilhelm Nay – Portrait of a Rider Portrait of a Rider Oil on canvas. 1934/35. 36.5 x 25.5 cm. Marked “NAY” several times on the reverse, likely by another hand. (14) Scheibler 162. – A dark-toned and unusually expressive painting from his early years, depicting a rider on horseback in a frontal view. The painting is particularly interesting when compared to the larger “Horseman” documented in the catalog raisonné (#161), which, with its clear and polished composition, evidently represented the definitive version of this theme in the artist’s eyes. Here, it is the particularly dynamic and impasto-like painting style—which seems to be driven less by calculation than by a spontaneous desire for expression—that stands out, as evidenced especially by the first-time rendering of the eye within an ellipse, a form that would become established as a standard motif in the artist’s work in subsequent years. - On the original stretcher and in an extremely simple frame made by the artist himself. - The paint surface is free of craquelure and very well preserved; slightly rubbed at the edges. - Formerly: Uli Nimptsch, London, and a private collection, Berlin. 36.5 x 25.5 cm Ernst Wilhelm Nay (Berlin 1902 – 1968 Cologne)