1954 saw the beginning of Ernst Wilhelm Nay's most famous work series, the “Scheibenbilder” (Disk Paintings, 1954-1962). Works from this series, of which the present one is a prime example, are among the most sought-after works on the international art market. The “Scheibenbilder” helped the artist succeed both in Germany and abroad: From 1955, his paintings were shown in galleries and museums in the United States, and in 1956 he represented Germany at the Venice Biennale. In 1957, two Disk Pictures were featured in the legendary exhibition German Art of the Twentieth Century at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and in 1959, Nay's works were exhibited at Documenta II in Kassel. Today, E. W. Nay is considered one of the most important modern German and international painters of the post-war years.

Initially, Nay combined the disks with other graphic elements, making them the sole motif of the picture, which was only in 1955. In the introductory text of the catalogue raisonné of oil paintings, Siegfried Gohr, former director of the Ludwig Museum in Cologne, compares this creative period with a “walk through the color wheel” because Nay used the circular and semi-circular forms as color carriers combined in the most diverse compositions, with hitherto unparalleled chromatic liberty (quoted from: ex. cat. E. W. Nay. Retrospective, Cologne 1990, p. 21). In the year the work offered here was created, Nay gradually dissolved the disks and circular form, which began to appear in a few works from that year, among them “Akkord in Rot und Blau” (Hamburger Kunsthalle) and “Grau und dunkles Blau” (Kunstmuseum Bonn), “Abstraktes Bild in Rot, Blau und Gelb” (Sprengel Museum, Hanover) and “Blau und Rubin” (Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels): “Nay increasingly evolved his motif from a painterly gesture: with broad brushstrokes, he formed color into a compact cluster [.]”. (Karin Schick, Im Kreis der Zeichen. Scheibenbilder, Augenbilder und Späte Bilder, in: ex. cat. E. W. Nay. Retrospektive, Hamburger Kunsthalle, 2022, p. 185)
In “Federgrau,” the dissolution ultimately reaches completion before re-emerging more clearly in the following year.

In our work, E. W. Nay contrasts the impact of the primary colors yellow and red with monochrome gray and black color fields. Individual contrasting color fields and streaks of bluish-light green mixed into light gray add a moment of tension and visual friction. The paint has been applied to the canvas free of formal rules or artistic schemes, allowing it to speak for itself. The free and unconstrained composition conveys a palpable sense of rhythm and movement, primarily through the less flat but rather gestural short, distinctive brushstrokes in light gray. Combined with the evocative title Federgrau (Feather Gray), the painting also conveys lightness that breaks through the density of the otherwise flat, colorful composition. The monochrome gray-black color soothes the overall impression, but the cheerfulness and intensity of the rich yellow, red, and orange-red color fields prevail.

"Federgrau" occupies a unique position among the Disk Paintings. Nay breaks with the traditional circular form in favor of free color fields, once again demonstrating his mastery in creating open pictorial spaces with the help of indeterminate, intuitive forms and a carefree certainty in the selection and combination of intense and contrasting colors. With its sunny yellow and strong red tones that conquer the dark gray-black, the work offered here shows Nay's mastery in balancing color, form, and material, as well as in creating liveliness and an optimistic radiance in these works from what was his most important period of creation and a first peak in his long artistic career. [CH]]