Sale: 436 / Modern Art I, Dec. 10. 2016 in Munich Lot 270

 

270
Ernst Wilhelm Nay
Reiter, 1934.
Oil on canvas
Estimate:
€ 40,000 / $ 43,200
Sold:
€ 65,000 / $ 70,200

(incl. surcharge)
Reiter. 1934.
Oil on canvas.
Scheibler 161. Signed and dated lower left. Rear overpainted in black. 100 x 68 cm (39.3 x 26.7 in).
[JS].
Works from the artist's very early period of creation are extremely rare on the international auction market.

PROVENANCE: Dr. Fritz and Erika Baumgart, Berlin.
Private collection North Rhine-Westphalia.

EXHIBITION: E. W. Nay (retrospective exhibition). Ölbilder Gouachen, Aquarelle, Zeichnungen, Druckgraphik, Haus am Waldsee, Berlin 17 May - 15 June 1952, cat. no. 17.
Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts aus Berliner Privatbesitz, Haus am Waldsee, Berlin 1st February - 6 March 1960, cat. no. 92.

The decisive turn in Ernst Wilhelm Nay's art took place in the mid 1930s: His early works from the beginning of the 1930s, strongly influenced by Surrealism, were followed by Nay's mythic animal pictures and then by pictures of dunes and fishermen which were rendered in a completely different style that would be decisive for his further artistic creation all the way to abstraction. Works like the painting "Weißer Stier", also from 1934 and today in possession of the Museum Ludwig, Cologne, the early "Dünenlandschaft" (1935) on display at the State Gallery Stuttgart or this painting "Reiter" count among the rare documents from this crucial work period. A period in which Nay attained an abstract style that is characterized by an impressive denseness and clarity by means of black contour lines and monochrome fields. [KD]



270
Ernst Wilhelm Nay
Reiter, 1934.
Oil on canvas
Estimate:
€ 40,000 / $ 43,200
Sold:
€ 65,000 / $ 70,200

(incl. surcharge)