Magical figures
To mark the anniversary year of 2012, the Ernst Barlach Haus is presenting a fascinating chapter in the work of the North German South Sea voyager Emil Nolde (1867–1956): his still lifes of masks and figures.
The exhibition shows the famous painter as an enthusiastic collector, who brought together craft objects from around the world and transformed them into magically vivid images from 1911 onwards. Cryptic and often humorously arranged, Nolde’s still lifes overstep the boundaries of painterly conventions and cultural differences – a hitherto little known and astonishingly cosmopolitan aspect of his art.
Until 1929 Emil Nolde painted around a hundred still lifes. A third of them can be seen in the exhibition – thanks to a cooperation with the Nolde Foundation Seebüll and important museums and private collections. The presentation is rounded off by more than 130 drawings, textiles, masks and objects that give an insight into Nolde’s many-figured world of inspired combinations.
The exhibition is accompanied by a richly illustrated catalogue (192 pages with more than 100 colour illustrations, German, hardcover, CORSO, Hamburg 2012).
