Ernst Wilhelm Nay (1902-1968)

Vom Rot begleitet

1955

Aquarell/Papier, 41 x 60 cm

Sign.u.r.: Nay 55

WVZ Nay: CR 55-075

Provenienz:

Kleemann Galleries, New York; Martha Graham Gallery, New York; Christie’s London, 1987; Galerie Ludorff, Düsseldorf; Privatsammlung Deutschland; Privatsammlung Deutschland (durch Erbschaft).

The watercolour Vom Rot begleitet was created in the same year that Ernst Wilhelm Nay published his art-theoretical essay Vom Gestaltwert der Farbe (On the Value of Colour as a Form), based on his teaching course at the Landeskunstschule Hamburg in autumn 1953.

As the artist emphasised, his artistic work was primarily determined by colour and its formal possibilities. From 1950 onwards, he liberated colour from any figurative function, using it instead to structure the picture surface spatially and rhythmically. Vom Rot begleitet is a striking example of this approach: circles of colour with irregular, shaded contours structure the surface freely and dynamically, and splashes of colour occasionally fill the spaces between forms. The result is an especially vibrant, almost musical composition. Ernst Wilhelm Nay was often inspired by the musical form of the fugue, based on polyphony, counterpoint and repetition. By juxtaposing areas of colour and alternating repetition with variation, as well as creating contrasts between warm and cool colours, the artist succeeded in generating fluid, rhythmic sequences within his works.

This watercolour was created during the period from 1954 to 1962 when the disc form, where statics and dynamics coincide, played a central role. For this acclaimed series of works, entitled Scheibenbilder, the artist first arranged a series of discs of the same colour on the surface of the picture. He then chromatically filled the space between them, creating a pictorial space without the three-dimensional quality of depth, which he described as ‘flat space’.