Oil on canvas. Signed and dated lower right. Signed, dated and titled verso on the stretcher. 110 x 100 cm. . [CH].
• Marvellous testimony to Nay's outstanding artistic versatility and progressiveness. • From the crucial transitional period from the “Eye Pictures” to the later Spindles. • Nay plays with the repertoire of forms his oeuvre offers and expresses it in a new pictorial form. • The yellow round spot in the upper right resembles an exclamation mark that balances the composition. • First exhibited in 1965, the year it was created. • Comparable works from this year can be found in the collections of the Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, the Hamburger Kunsthalle, the Museum Ludwig, Cologne, and the Würth Collection, among others. LITERATURE: Aurel Scheibler, Ernst Wilhelm Nay. Catalogue raisonné of the oil paintings, vol. 2 (1952-1968), Cologne 1990, no. 1148 (illustrated in color).
E. W. Nay, Galerie Günther Franke, Munich, Sept. 3 to end of Sept. 1965, cat. no. 13 (with an exhibition label on the reverse of the stretcher). E. W. Nay. Bilder aus den Jahren 1935-1968 (Retrospektive), Museum Städtische Kunstsammlungen, Bonn, January 27 - March 1, 1970, cat. no. 32
Galerie Günther Franke, Munich (1965). Dr. Wolfgang Münch, Kaiserslautern. Galerie Brockstedt, Hamburg (1987, with the loose gallery label). Guenter Roese Collection, Berlin/Hanover/Wieck a. Darß (with the collector's stamp on the reverse of the stretcher). Private collection, Berlin. Acquired by the current owner from the above
“Pictures come from pictures,” said Ernst Wilhelm Nay. Following this maxim, the artist, during a long life as a painter, made a final stylistic change, whereby he adopted a new rhythm but skilfully tied it into his previous works in formal terms. While the 'Eye Pictures' were still full of spatial elements, emotional expressiveness, and figurative associations, pictures from Nay's 'last' group, on the other hand, appear simplified, light, yet complex, and spontaneous simultaneously. 'At the height of his artistic experience, Nay subjected his painting to a final clarification,' said Elisabeth Nay-Scheibler in 1990. 'It led to a radical simplification of his design language and a palette reduced to just a few colors. With great vitality and extreme discipline, he dared to abandon the expressive structures of the 'Eye Pictures' that he had brought to pictorial perfection, gaining freedom to realize the essence of art through reduction as part of his new vision. Clearly defined spindle shapes, chains of round or oval disks, arcs and ribbons of color spread across the canvas in a vertical alignment. The vertical emphasis creates the impression of a seemingly endless, transitory sequence of movements. The pictures suddenly take on a meditative calm.” (Nay-Scheibler, in: E. W. Nay, catalogue raisonné of oil paintings, vol. II, 1952-1968, Cologne 1990, p. 282) A change in the color palette accompanied this step. Alongside spatial elements such as the remaining allusions to the eye motif, there are also vegetal and anthropomorphic forms, spindle shapes, chains, oval discs, ribbons of color, and arched forms, which Nay realizes in accordance with his theoretical demands on chromatic painting, thereby reducing his formal language to a minimum, demanding of himself “to make the surface gestalt through color.” Nay devised a new palette that included cool colors mixed in bold combinations like the dark reddish brown in the center of the canvas, which dominates the work. At the same time, Nay's yellow, shaded like a decrescent moon, defines its right margin. On the left-hand side, Nay placed a vertical row of bright red semicircles running from top to bottom. The yellow, circular dot at the top right resembles an exclamation mark that balances the composition. “It is worth a lifetime to progress to the point where the true color picture can emerge and the color sounds in a way that human aspects can be seen without any particular intention on the part of the artist, human and creaturely aspects in a new, unknown formulation,” said the artist. (E. W. Nay. Lesebuch. Selbstzeugnisse und Schriften, Cologne 2002, p. 297) A characteristic feature of the late, mostly strictly rectangular pictures is a composition extending beyond the edge of the picture, an expansion of condensed forms that begins an expansive and dynamic equation of an ornament. “A colorist is a painter who thinks in color and visualizes through color,” said Nay in his last published essay ‘Meine Farben’ (My Colors) from 1967. As is the case here, the works from Nay's last creative years show a particular density in color and form, which culminates in the highest possible tension. “Two-dimensionality was of such great importance to Nay because he recognized a disruption of their directness and sensual radiance in every spatial perspective of the colors.”, says the expert Elisabeth Nay-Scheibler about the few selected colors, which usually underline the intensity and clear expression of Nay's late work. (Nay-Scheibler, in: E. W. N., Catalogue Raisonné of Oil Paintings, vol. II, 1952-1968, Cologne 1990, p. 282) Nay takes the liberty of realizing the essence of his art through reduction in pursuit of a new vision of absolute painting. He increased the luminosity and transparency of his colors by means of audacious simplification; every internal drawing was sacrificed to an arithmetic color scheme, every previously intense expressivity was transferred to a cool, confident simplicity, inspired by meditative calm and order. [MvL]
Dark and atmospheric work in an appealing overall impression. In the dark red areas with minor craquelure and flaking, partially with small color losses. With a light dent and rubbing mark in the upper left, next to the vertical white line on the left edge of the image. Slight indentation in the center of the horizontal stretcher. A tiny pinhole to the right in the second circle from the bottom. The upper right corner of the image is minimally rubbed. The condition report was compiled in daylight with the help of a UV light source and to the best of our knowledge and belief
Lot Details
Oil on canvas. Signed and dated lower right. Signed, dated and titled verso on the stretcher. 110 x 100 cm. . [CH].
• Marvellous testimony to Nay's outstanding artistic versatility and progressiveness. • From the crucial transitional period from the “Eye Pictures” to the later Spindles. • Nay plays with the repertoire of forms his oeuvre offers and expresses it in a new pictorial form. • The yellow round spot in the upper right resembles an exclamation mark that balances the composition. • First exhibited in 1965, the year it was created. • Comparable works from this year can be found in the collections of the Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, the Hamburger Kunsthalle, the Museum Ludwig, Cologne, and the Würth Collection, among others. LITERATURE: Aurel Scheibler, Ernst Wilhelm Nay. Catalogue raisonné of the oil paintings, vol. 2 (1952-1968), Cologne 1990, no. 1148 (illustrated in color).
E. W. Nay, Galerie Günther Franke, Munich, Sept. 3 to end of Sept. 1965, cat. no. 13 (with an exhibition label on the reverse of the stretcher). E. W. Nay. Bilder aus den Jahren 1935-1968 (Retrospektive), Museum Städtische Kunstsammlungen, Bonn, January 27 - March 1, 1970, cat. no. 32
Galerie Günther Franke, Munich (1965). Dr. Wolfgang Münch, Kaiserslautern. Galerie Brockstedt, Hamburg (1987, with the loose gallery label). Guenter Roese Collection, Berlin/Hanover/Wieck a. Darß (with the collector's stamp on the reverse of the stretcher). Private collection, Berlin. Acquired by the current owner from the above
“Pictures come from pictures,” said Ernst Wilhelm Nay. Following this maxim, the artist, during a long life as a painter, made a final stylistic change, whereby he adopted a new rhythm but skilfully tied it into his previous works in formal terms. While the 'Eye Pictures' were still full of spatial elements, emotional expressiveness, and figurative associations, pictures from Nay's 'last' group, on the other hand, appear simplified, light, yet complex, and spontaneous simultaneously. 'At the height of his artistic experience, Nay subjected his painting to a final clarification,' said Elisabeth Nay-Scheibler in 1990. 'It led to a radical simplification of his design language and a palette reduced to just a few colors. With great vitality and extreme discipline, he dared to abandon the expressive structures of the 'Eye Pictures' that he had brought to pictorial perfection, gaining freedom to realize the essence of art through reduction as part of his new vision. Clearly defined spindle shapes, chains of round or oval disks, arcs and ribbons of color spread across the canvas in a vertical alignment. The vertical emphasis creates the impression of a seemingly endless, transitory sequence of movements. The pictures suddenly take on a meditative calm.” (Nay-Scheibler, in: E. W. Nay, catalogue raisonné of oil paintings, vol. II, 1952-1968, Cologne 1990, p. 282) A change in the color palette accompanied this step. Alongside spatial elements such as the remaining allusions to the eye motif, there are also vegetal and anthropomorphic forms, spindle shapes, chains, oval discs, ribbons of color, and arched forms, which Nay realizes in accordance with his theoretical demands on chromatic painting, thereby reducing his formal language to a minimum, demanding of himself “to make the surface gestalt through color.” Nay devised a new palette that included cool colors mixed in bold combinations like the dark reddish brown in the center of the canvas, which dominates the work. At the same time, Nay's yellow, shaded like a decrescent moon, defines its right margin. On the left-hand side, Nay placed a vertical row of bright red semicircles running from top to bottom. The yellow, circular dot at the top right resembles an exclamation mark that balances the composition. “It is worth a lifetime to progress to the point where the true color picture can emerge and the color sounds in a way that human aspects can be seen without any particular intention on the part of the artist, human and creaturely aspects in a new, unknown formulation,” said the artist. (E. W. Nay. Lesebuch. Selbstzeugnisse und Schriften, Cologne 2002, p. 297) A characteristic feature of the late, mostly strictly rectangular pictures is a composition extending beyond the edge of the picture, an expansion of condensed forms that begins an expansive and dynamic equation of an ornament. “A colorist is a painter who thinks in color and visualizes through color,” said Nay in his last published essay ‘Meine Farben’ (My Colors) from 1967. As is the case here, the works from Nay's last creative years show a particular density in color and form, which culminates in the highest possible tension. “Two-dimensionality was of such great importance to Nay because he recognized a disruption of their directness and sensual radiance in every spatial perspective of the colors.”, says the expert Elisabeth Nay-Scheibler about the few selected colors, which usually underline the intensity and clear expression of Nay's late work. (Nay-Scheibler, in: E. W. N., Catalogue Raisonné of Oil Paintings, vol. II, 1952-1968, Cologne 1990, p. 282) Nay takes the liberty of realizing the essence of his art through reduction in pursuit of a new vision of absolute painting. He increased the luminosity and transparency of his colors by means of audacious simplification; every internal drawing was sacrificed to an arithmetic color scheme, every previously intense expressivity was transferred to a cool, confident simplicity, inspired by meditative calm and order. [MvL]
Dark and atmospheric work in an appealing overall impression. In the dark red areas with minor craquelure and flaking, partially with small color losses. With a light dent and rubbing mark in the upper left, next to the vertical white line on the left edge of the image. Slight indentation in the center of the horizontal stretcher. A tiny pinhole to the right in the second circle from the bottom. The upper right corner of the image is minimally rubbed. The condition report was compiled in daylight with the help of a UV light source and to the best of our knowledge and belief
Ernst Wilhelm Nay 
