Emil Nolde

07.08.1867

Emil Nolde was born Hans Emil Hansen in Nolde in North Schleswig. He is the son of the farmer Niels Hansen and his Danish wife Hanna Christine.

1884 - 1888

Trained as a wood sculptor at Sauermann'sche Möbelfabrik in Flensburg.

1888 - 1891

Nolde works as a carver and draughtsman in furniture factories in Munich and Karlsruhe, where he attends trade school in his free time. He moves to Berlin, where he works for two years.

1892 - 1897

Nolde gets a job as a specialised teacher for industrial drawing at the Museum of Industry and Trade in St. Gallen. He undertakes mountain tours and climbs the Matterhorn. During these years, he produced watercolours of landscapes, portraits and drawings of mountain farmers, which he was able to show in exhibitions at the Kunstverein St. Gallen. His first painting "Mountain Giants" (1895/96) is rejected by the jury at the annual exhibition in Munich.

1898 - 1900

After giving up his position in St. Gallen, Nolde moves to Munich. He was rejected by the Academy of Fine Arts and subsequently took lessons from Friedrich Gehr and Adolf Hölzel. 1899 Travelled via Amsterdam to Paris, where he studied nude drawing at the Académie Julian and drew in the Louvre. In Paris he meets Paula (Modersohn-)Becker and Clara Westhoff.

1900 - 1905

In the autumn of 1900, Nolde moved to Copenhagen, where he rented a studio. He met the actress Ada Vilstrup, whom he married in 1902, and rented a studio in Berlin. In 1903, Nolde moved with his wife to the Baltic Sea island of Alsen, which would remain his permanent residence until 1916. Here, the artist built a simple studio on the beach out of planks. In 1904, the painter changed his name to Emil Nolde. From 1905, Nolde spends the winter months in Berlin.

1906 - 1909

The young Brücke painters offer Nolde membership of their artists' group. Karl Schmidt-Rottluf works in Nolde's neighbourhood on Alsen in the summer and gets him a printing press. Nolde produces his first woodcuts. In 1907, Nolde met the Hamburg art historian Rosa Schapire, who promoted his work. At the end of 1907, he leaves the "Brücke" and meets Edvard Munch in Berlin. In 1908, Nolde took part in exhibitions at the Paul Cassirer art dealership in Berlin, among others. He becomes a member of the Berlin Secession.

1910 - 1914

In the summer of 1910, Nolde painted a series of pictures with biblical themes in Ruttenbüll/North Sea. Following disputes with Max Liebermann, Nolde was expelled from the Berlin Secession in 1911 and became a member of the newly founded New Secession. The "Autumn Seas" series (1911/12) and the nine-part work "The Life of Christ" (1911/12) are created. Max Sauerland acquires Nolde's "Last Supper" for the museum in Halle/Saale. Nolde acquires the farmhouse Utenwarf near the North Sea. As members of the Medical-Demographic German-New Guinea Expedition, the Nolde couple travels through Siberia, Korea, Japan and China to Papua New Guinea. Emil Nolde paints numerous watercolours and oil paintings and carves wooden figures during the journey. Due to the outbreak of the First World War, the Nolde couple are only able to return to Germany with great difficulty, and their luggage containing most of their works is confiscated by the British.

1915 - 1920

The Imperial Colonial Office acquires 50 New Guinea watercolours for 500 marks. The money enables Nolde to move to Utenwarf. Nolde turns down an offer of a professorship at the Academy in Karlsruhe in 1918. In 1919, Nolde becomes a member of the Labour Council for Art. He travelled to the island of Föhr and the Hallig Hooge. In 1920, North Schleswig and Utenwarf became Danish and Nolde became a Danish citizen, which would not change until his death.

1921 - 1925

Nolde manages to get the confiscated paintings from the South Sea trip back in London. Nolde then travelled via France to Spain, where he visited the Prado in Madrid. The first monograph on the artist is published, written by Max Sauerlandt. In the winter of 1923/34, he creates watercolours with motifs from the Berlin Zoo, the Aquarium and the Botanical Gardens. Nolde travelled to Munich, Italy and Vienna.

1926 - 1933

Nolde acquires the Seebüll terp and the neighbouring farm. From 1927, construction work begins on a house and studio according to Nolde's designs. The Nolde couple begin to lay out a large flower garden. On Nolde's 60th birthday (1927), a retrospective of over 400 works is organised in Dresden, which travels on to various German museums. Nolde receives an honorary doctorate from the University of Kiel. In 1929, the Nolde couple move from Tautenzienstraße to Bayernallee in Berlin. Nolde spends the summer of 1930 on Sylt, where he meets the Jewish couple Turgel. He created numerous portraits of Margarete Turgel. In 1931, Nolde was elected a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin and took part in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 1932 he was represented with seven paintings in the exhibition "New German Art" in Oslo and other Scandinavian cities.

1933 - 1945

After the National Socialists came to power in 1933, Nolde hoped that those in favour of his art would prevail within the government. By signing the "Appeal of the Creative Artists" (1934), Nolde emphasised his support for Hitler's role as Führer. Nolde becomes a member of the "National Socialist Working Group North Schleswig" (NSAN). In 1937, 1052 of Nolde's works are confiscated from German museums as degenerate and some of them are shown in the "Degenerate Art" exhibition. Works from his studio were also confiscated. From 1941, Nolde increasingly stored works with acquaintances as he feared further confiscations. In August 1941, Nolde was expelled from the Reichskammer der bildenden Künste (Reich Chamber of Fine Arts) and banned from working, exhibiting or selling art either professionally or as a sideline. However, Nolde did not resign from the party, but hoped until 1945 that the ban would be lifted. From 1942 to 1944, he created several flower paintings, a figure painting and small-format watercolours, which belong to the series known as the "Unheld Paintings". Nolde's flat in Berlin was destroyed by bombs on 15 February 1944. Nolde loses many of his own works as well as works by Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Oskar Kokoschka and Lyoner Feininger, among others.

1946 - 1956

In August 1946, the Kiel denazification committee exonerated Nolde despite his party membership. After a long period of heart disease, Ada Nolde dies on 2 November 1946. Nolde finds it difficult to bear the loneliness and falls into a deep state of mourning. On 22 February 1948, Nolde married the 26-year-old Jolanthe Erdmann. By 1951, he had produced over 100 paintings, mostly based on small-format watercolours, and by 1955, numerous more watercolours. Nolde received many awards and honours, including the Graphic Arts Prize at the XXVI Venice Biennale (1952) and the Order pour le mérite (1952). He exhibited several times at the Venice Biennale (1950, 1952, 1956) and in Kassel at the documenta 1955. Nolde dies in Seebüll on 13 April 1956.