325 - Ernst Mollenhauer

Ernst Mollenhauer 1892 Tapiau, East Prussia – 1963 Düsseldorf – “Boats on the Curonian Lagoon” – (1946) Oil on hardboard. 49.7 x 63.2 cm. 60 x 73 cm (dimensions including frame). Signed and dated lower right: Mollenhauer (19)46. Framed. Ernst Mollenhauer studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Königsberg in 1913 and was encouraged by Lovis Corinth. He became acquainted with what would later become the Nidden artists’ colony on the Curonian Spit, where his friendship with Max Pechstein began in 1919. He spent time in the U.S. (1922–24). Under Nazi rule, he was labeled “degenerate.” In 1950, he was given a studio in Düsseldorf, and later a second one in Keitum on Sylt. On the North Sea island of Sylt, he was impressed by the sea, the sky, the mudflats, and the light. He developed a powerful, vividly colored, expressive style of painting. Much of the artist’s early work from before 1945 was destroyed or is considered lost.