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“They are such calm and beautiful hours when one sits or moves about between the fragrant and blossoming flowers; I really wish to give my pictures something of this beauty…”
—Emil NoldeEmil Nolde’s Iris, 1916, is a vibrant painting of deep purple irises, accented by a flash of scarlet poppies. Nolde’s vigorous, German Expressionist brushstroke and strong sense of color create a gorgeous contrast between the turquoise stalks of the titular irises and the rich, jewel-toned blossoms above and below. The impasto of the vermillion soil and emerald underbrush is almost wet, as if the flowers have been freshly watered. With the majority of Nolde’s floral paintings as later watercolor works, Iris is a rare and early oil painting, which reveals the central role that the flowering countryside of Northern Germany played in the development of Nolde’s Expressionist idiom.Born and raised on a farm in the frontier of Northern Germany, close to Denmark, Nolde spent his childhood surrounded by flora and fauna. He held particularly fond memories of his mother’s garden, and would plant his own garden at every home he lived in, for the rest of his life. 1916 was an important year of transition for Nolde as a gardener, as he and his wife moved from their cottage on Als Island to a new home in nearby Utenwarf, where Nolde immediately set to work planting a garden. Iris dates to this period of transition and renewed vigor in floral painting, as Nolde took in the “higher, fresher air,” and “harsher and stronger beauty” of the west coast at Utenwarf. The emotional intensity Nolde associated with the landscape of Utenwarf translates into the depth of color and strength of brushstroke in Iris. The diagonals of the composition—along the heads of the irises, and up the stems of their stalks—reflect, too, the topography of Nolde’s garden at Utenwarf; the garden, “a tiny piece of paradise,” as he described it, “grew particularly well and had an amazing richness of flowers due to its position at a diagonal from the sun.”
Emil Nolde, Blue and Violet Flowers, 1916. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Image: © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY, Artwork: © Nolde Stiftung Seebüll For Nolde, the significance of his garden to his art practice was not merely limited to representational paintings of flowers like Iris; throughout his career, and particularly in his most radical and innovative early German Expressionist years, Nolde sought to incorporate the brightness, freshness, and vivacity of spirit he found in the garden into all of his paintings, regardless of subject matter. Indeed, his floral paintings played a pivotal role in his development of the vibrant, dynamic painting style that earned him an invitation to join the avant-garde group Die Brücke. Nolde discovered color as his own individual means of expression via the flower paintings he created on Als Island in 1906; acceptance by Die Brücke came that same year, and some of his best-known and most innovative paintings soon followed. One could argue that the two aspects of his practice, floral and Expressionist, are inseparable strands of one avant-garde pursuit.
Nolde’s acutely attuned relationship to the natural world, and the richness of color and form within it, had a direct effect on his skills as an Expressionist painter, particularly towards his ability to imbue color and brushstroke with emotional intensity. “Even the purely fantastic is somehow also attached to nature,” Nolde wrote. Nolde had such a visceral reaction to the colors of the natural world, that he could not help but incorporate them into his work. “The color of the flowers drew me magnetically to them,” he said, “and suddenly I was painting.”
i Manfield Reuther, “’Greetings from our young garden’—Emil Nolde’s Gardens and his Flower Paintings,” in Reuther, et al., Emil Nolde: Mein Garten voller Blumen (My Garden full of Flowers), Nolde Stiftung; DuMont, Cologne, 2009, pp. 22, 26.
ii Ibid., p. 26.
iii Emil Nolde, quoted ibid.
iv Ibid., p. 27.
v Reuther, p. 23.
vi Nolde, quoted ibid., p. 19.
vii Reuther, p. 23.
viii Nolde, quoted ibid., p. 24.
Description
Please see main sale page for guarantee notice https://www.phillips.com/auctions/auction/NY011123
Provenance
Paul Rickmers, Hamburg (acquired directly from the artist in 1918)
Private Collection, Hamburg (by descent from the above)
Christie's, London, November 28, 1988, lot 44
Coubertin de Helo, Portugal (acquired at the above sale)
Galerie Hopkins-Custot, Paris
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2007Exhibited
Hannover, Kestner Gesellschaft, Emil Nolde: Gemälde, Graphik, January 6–February 6, 1918, no. 60
The Hague, Gemeentemuseum, Meer dan kleur. Fauvisme en expressionisme uit de collectie van de Triton Foundation, April 11–September 6, 2009, pp. 17-18 (illustrated, p. 17)
Rotterdam, Kunsthal, Avant-gardes 1870 to the present: The Collection of the Triton Foundation, October 7, 2012–January 20, 2013, pp. 207, 557 (illustrated)Literature
Martin Urban, Emil Nolde: Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil-Paintings. Volume Two 1915-1951, London, 1990, no. 734, pp. 117, 617 (illustrated, p. 117)
LIVING THE AVANT-GARDE: THE TRITON COLLECTION FOUNDATION
18
Iris
signed "Nolde" lower right; signed and titled “Emil Nolde “Iris”” on the stretcher
oil on canvas
35 5/8 x 27 3/4 in. (90.5 x 70.5 cm)
Painted in 1916.
Estimate
$500,000 - 700,000
Sold for $482,600
Carolyn Kolberg
Associate Specialist, Head of Sale
+1 212 940 1206
CKolberg@phillips.com
Living the Avant-Garde: The Triton Collection Foundation, Evening Sale Part I
New York Auction 14 November 2023
1
Wassily Kandinsky
Entwurf zu Komposition IV
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
Sold for $889,000
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2
Amedeo Modigliani
Tête de jeune fille (Louise)
Estimate $4,000,000 - 6,000,000
Sold for $5,868,000
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3
Gino Severini
Mare = Ballerina
Estimate $80,000 - 120,000
Sold for $444,500
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4
Theo van Doesburg
Composition (Seated Figure)
Estimate $900,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $1,016,000
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5
Georges Braque
La bouteille de Bass
Estimate $7,000,000 - 10,000,000
Sold for $8,465,000
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6
Joan Miró
Personnage et oiseaux
Estimate $700,000 - 1,000,000
Sold for $889,000
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7
Alexander Calder
New Blériot
Estimate $3,000,000 - 5,000,000
Sold for $3,206,000
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8
Jean Dubuffet
Inspecteurs Sinoque et Dingue
Estimate $4,000,000 - 6,000,000
Sold for $4,900,000
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9
Jean-Paul Riopelle
Ariane
Estimate $600,000 - 800,000
Sold for $1,330,500
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10
Fernand Léger
Le 14 juillet
Estimate $15,000,000 - 20,000,000
Sold for $17,625,000
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11
Édouard Vuillard
Le Cantique des cantiques
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $1,512,000
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12
Maurice Denis
La Vendange mystique
Estimate $300,000 - 400,000
Sold for $431,800
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13
Pierre Bonnard
Autoportrait
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $2,238,000
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14
Edgar Degas
Le petit déjeuner après le bain
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $2,480,000
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15
Roy Lichtenstein
Woman Contemplating a Yellow Cup (Study)
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $1,996,000
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16
Pablo Picasso
Femme en corset lisant un livre
Estimate $15,000,000 - 20,000,000
Sold for $14,762,500
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17
Heinrich Campendonk
Im Garten - Frau, Pferd, Ziege
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
Sold for $698,500
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18
Emil Nolde
Iris
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
Sold for $482,600
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19
Pablo Picasso
Femme accroupie
Estimate $200,000 - 300,000
Sold for $330,200
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20
Joan Mitchell
Untitled
Estimate $8,000,000 - 12,000,000
Sold for $7,892,500
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21
Piero Manzoni
Achrome
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $1,754,000
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22
Louise Bourgeois
Tits
Estimate $250,000 - 350,000
Sold for $317,500
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23
Yves Klein
Anthropométrie sans titre, (ANT 149)
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $1,016,000
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24
Max Beckmann
Blühender Garten
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $508,000
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25
Émile Bernard
Paysage de Bretagne (Paysage avec deux Bretonnes et vache)
Estimate $1,200,000 - 1,800,000
Sold for $1,143,000
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26
Paul Sérusier
La Cueillette des pommes
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $1,391,000
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27
Félix Vallotton
Papotage
Estimate $300,000 - 500,000
Sold for $330,200
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28
Paul Gauguin
Masque de Meyer de Haan
Estimate $60,000 - 80,000
Sold for $66,040
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29
Robert Ryman
Untitled, Prototype
Estimate $300,000 - 500,000
Sold for $254,000
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30
Sam Francis
Purple, Orange & Green
Estimate $200,000 - 300,000
Sold for $482,600
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