The Lyonel Feininger Gallery in Quedlinburg is devoting an exhibition to a great Expressionist next year. 14 weeks belong to Emil Nolde - an artist who is as enthusiastic as he is controversial.
Quedlinburg (dpa/sa) - The Lyonel Feininger Gallery in Quedlinburg in the Harz Mountains will be showing works by the artist Emil Nolde (1867-1956) next year. The Expressionist's art is to be presented from April 30 to August 6, 2023, the Museum of Graphic Arts said. It is planned to exhibit around 70 exhibits from the "Unpainted Pictures" series of works.
To this end, the gallery works closely with the Nolde Foundation Seebüll in Schleswig-Holstein. "The selection is not final yet, we are still in the process of voting," said Lina Aßmann, interim director of the Quedlinburg gallery, the German Press Agency.
The "Unpainted Pictures" series consists of small-format watercolors that are said to have been created during Nolde's persecution by the National Socialists and primarily served as templates. The show also wants to convey the latest art historical research on the creation of the series and embed it in the context of its creation and reception - which is why it is subtitled "Myth and Reality".
According to the information, after the end of the war Nolde was "perceived as a persecuted pioneer of a new German art and as a victim of Nazi art policy". "A one-sided emphasis on Nolde's victim status prevailed." Nolde's works were defamed by the Nazis as "degenerate", but he was considered an admirer of Adolf Hitler and an anti-Semite. Nevertheless, Nolde is said to be "probably the most famous degenerate artist", from whom more than a thousand works are said to have been confiscated during the National Socialist period.
The private Nolde Foundation on the German-Danish border has been working on this chapter of Nolde's biography for years. According to her own statements, she has unreservedly supported research on Nolde's behavior under National Socialism since 2013.
The Lyonel Feininger Gallery in Quedlinburg, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, claims to be the only one in the world dedicated to the work of the painter, graphic artist and Bauhaus creator Feininger (1871-1956).
