Still Life, Tulips

Artist Emil Nolde German, 1867–1956

Datecirca 1930

MediumWatercolor on paper

Dimensions18 13/16 x 13 15/16 in. (47.8 x 35.4 cm)
Frame: 26 x 21 x 1 3/4 in. (66 x 53.3 x 4.4 cm)

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LineBequest of W. R. Valentiner

Object numberG.65.10.51

On View

Not on view

Label Text
Emil Nolde was a relatively little-known Impressionist when Karl Schmidt-Rottluff invited him to join the artists’ alliance known as Die Brücke in 1906. Though he, like the younger Brücke artists, believed in nature’s spirituality and color’s expressive power, the independent Nolde soon left the group. A thrilling colorist in various media, he depicted Bible stories and primordial legends, as well as landscapes, seascapes, and flowers throughout a long career.

Nolde’s watercolors best reveal his extraordinary gifts as a colorist. Watercolors, and works on paper in general, provided a crucial testing ground for many German artists of the early twentieth century. Few, however, approached watercolor with the daring intuitive panache of Nolde. An improviser, he applied the watercolor to moistened Japan paper and in effect dyed the paper with the pigment, imbuing the saturated colors with a luminous depth. Nolde also knew how to coax eloquence from paper left blank.

Still Life, Tulips has the feel of a spontaneous, exultant response to nature’s glory, found in the rare and the ubiquitous. Flamboyant amaryllis oversee tulips bunched along the lower border—vermilions and scarlets radiating around one golden orb of a tulip blossom and set against the modulated tones of a dusky purple sky. The cropped composition fills the sheet, suggesting that it extends beyond its edges. This reverent, romantic watercolor sings praise to nature’s awe-inspiring dynamism.
ProvenanceW. R. Valentiner, Detroit, MI, by 1930 [1]; Valentiner Estate, NC, 1958 [2]; to NCMA, by bequest, 1965.

[1] Lent by Valentiner to Harvard Society exhibition.
[2] L.58.12.165-VE
Published ReferencesMasterpieces of Art: In Memory of William R. Valentiner, 1880-1958 (exhibition catalogue) (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1959), cat. no. 135, illus. (b-w) 214, fig. 135.

"Accessions of American and Canadian Museums," The Art Quarterly 26, no. 2 (Summer 1963), listed 275, illus. (b-w) 259.

Gustavus H. Miller, Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted or What's in a Dream (New York: Rand McNally & Co., n.d.), 33, illus.

"Acquisitions," North Carolina Museum of Art Bulletin 6, no. 4 and 7, no. 1 (1966/67?), listed 79.

A Catalogue of Drawings and Watercolors (exhibition catalogue) (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1969), cat. no. 79, illus. (b-w).

Lois Fichner-Rathus, Understanding Art, 4th ed. (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1995: illus. (color) 104. 5th ed. (1998), illus. (color) 99. 6th ed. (Fort Worth: Harcourt College Publishers, 2001), illus. (color) 155. 7th ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2004), briefly discussed and illus. (color) 139. 10th ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning, 2013), briefly discussed 131–32, illus. (color) 131, fig. 6-15.

North Carolina Museum of Art Bulletin 17 (1997), listed and illus. (b-w) 94.

Huston Paschal, entry for Still Life, Tulips, in North Carolina Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections, Rebecca Martin Nagy, ed. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1998), 219, illus. (color).

M. Therese Southgate, M.D., "The Cover," JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association 289, no. 4 (March 19, 2003), discussed 392, illus. (color) 383, 392, and cover.
Exhibition HistoryCambridge, MA, Harvard Society of Contemporary Art, "Modern German Art," April 18-May 10, 1930; Hartford, CT, Wadsworth Atheneum, May 19-June 2, 1930 (lent by W. R. Valentiner).

Phoenix, AZ, Phoenix Fine Arts Association, "German Expressionist Prints and Paintings," February 9-March 7, 1953 (see label).

Los Angeles, CA, University of Southern California, "Some German Expressionists," November 4-26, 1954.

Beverly Hills, CA, Paul Kantor Gallery, "W. R. Valentiner Collection - German Expressionists," 1956.

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "Masterpieces of Art: In Memory of William R. Valentiner, 1880-1958," April 6-May 17, 1959, cat. no. 135, illus. (b-w).

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "Drawings and Watercolors," Summer 1969, cat. no. 79, illus. (b-w).

Richmond, VA, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, "Masterpieces from the North Carolina Museum of Art," March 11-April 13, 1975, cat. no. 135, illus.

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, Changing Selections Gallery, "German Watercolors, 1920-1932," May 30-August 20, 1989.

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, Mary Duke Biddle Education Gallery, "Objects of Delight: Still Lifes from the Permanent Collection," October 5, 1990-June 16, 1991.

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "The Legacy of W. R. Valentiner," January 27-March 29, 1998.
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