572 - Ernst Wilhelm Nay (1902, Berlin – Cologne, 1968)

Ernst Wilhelm Nay (1902, Berlin – Cologne, 1968) “FIGURALE – ETA” Oil on canvas. 1949. Approx. 70.5 x 90 cm. Signed and dated lower left. Signed, dated, and titled again on the reverse of the stretcher. Scheibler 486. • Painting from the “Fugal Pictures” period, which marks Nay’s artistic rebirth • Dynamic, fluid composition with a characteristic, warm, ochre-brown color palette • Exhibited as early as 1950 at Nay’s comprehensive retrospective in Hanover While the immediate postwar years were marked by the fairy-tale-like, colorful “Hekate” paintings, a new phase of work—the “Fugal Pictures”—began in 1948. Drafting elements return; black and white take on a new significance; and instead of pure primary colors, subdued mixed colors increasingly come to the fore. Nay engaged intensively with the “intermediate realm of color tones,” comparable to the chromaticism of music (see Siegfried Gohr, in: WVZ, Vol. I, p. 18). The new works illustrate Nay’s shift toward the plane; the individual color fields show hardly any brushstrokes, and instead, the movement in the image is conveyed through the black linear elements. “The titles of this series of paintings, which Nay often prefixes with the term ‘Figurale,’ suggest that his art—despite its increasing abstraction—has the human figure as its subject. Often, however, the motif is not in the representational-literary sense, but rather in a ‘fugal’ method, known from music as a theme of repetition and inversion. Similarly, Nay incorporates individual complexes of forms into the picture through variation and inversion, so that the term ‘fugue’ or ‘fugal’ aptly describes this compositional order. With this term, which he applies to his paintings, Nay emphasizes the abstract element of his composition. (…) Nay’s paintings from 1949 to 1951 lie precisely at the intersection of non-representational and representational art, and yet they seemed so unusual and alien at the time that they remained largely misunderstood by the art-loving public. It is a testament to the steadfastness of his artistic path that Nay did not allow criticism to unsettle him, but rather accepted resistance as a challenge that led him to intensify his work and resulted in a rich body of bold paintings, including large-format works.” (Elisabeth Nay-Scheibler, WVZ, Vol. I, p. 294.) Exhibition: E. W. Nay. Retrospective, Kestner-Gesellschaft, Hanover 1950, cat. no. 56; Neue Rheinische Secession Düsseldorf, Haus der Kunst, Munich 1950, cat. no. 149 (dated 1945); Ernst Wilhelm Nay. The Hofheim Years 1945–1951, Städtische Galerie im Städel, Frankfurt am Main, and Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig, 1994, cat. no. 47, ill. p. 119. Provenance: Hauswedell & Nolte, Hamburg, June 9, 1984, Lot 1177a; Private collection, Northern Germany, acquired from the aforementioned dealer; Private collection, Germany, since 2022. Taxation: subject to margin scheme (VAT: Margin Scheme).