Lot 51
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51
Ernst Wilhelm Nay
Omikron, 1952.
Oil on canvas
Estimate:
€ 100,000 / $ 110,000 Sold:
€ 475,000 / $ 522,500 (incl. surcharge)
Omikron. 1952.
Oil on canvas.
Scheibler 641. Lower left signed and dated. Signed, dated and titled, as well as inscribed with the direction on the reverse. 60 x 52 cm (23.6 x 20.4 in).
• Marvelous example of Nay's empathy for the order of form and color.
• Bright, radiant and dynamic work from the series of the "Rhythmic Pictures".
• In his entirely abstract works from the 1950s, Nay had found the "most vital liberation of the color" (quoted from: Claesges, p. 11).
• The vibe of the free and light-suffused improvisation "Omikron" is cheerful and elated.
• Part of the same private collection since the 1970s.
PROVENANCE:
Galerie der Spiegel, Cologne.
Private collection North Rhine-Westphalia (since 1970, ever since family-owned).
EXHIBITION:
Galerie Marbach, Bern, January 21 - February 13, 1953.
Ernst Wilhelm Nay – Bilder, Gouachen, Aquarelle und Zeichnungen, Galerie der Spiegel, Cologne, November 12 - December 15, 1954, cat. no. 18.
Ernst Wilhelm Nay – Gemälde und Aquarelle, Leopold Hoesch-Museum, Düren, January 16 - February 13, 1955.
LITERATURE: K. Schick, S. Colditz, R. Zieglgänsberger, E. W. Nay Retrospektive. Köln 2022, p. 21, plate 5.
"Imagination – life-affirming, a constant renewal of the universe – of the idea of the world."
Ernst Wilhelm Nay, 1952, quoted from: E. W. Nay. Gemälde und unveröffentlichte Schriften aus vier Jahrzehnten, 1985, p. 52.
Oil on canvas.
Scheibler 641. Lower left signed and dated. Signed, dated and titled, as well as inscribed with the direction on the reverse. 60 x 52 cm (23.6 x 20.4 in).
• Marvelous example of Nay's empathy for the order of form and color.
• Bright, radiant and dynamic work from the series of the "Rhythmic Pictures".
• In his entirely abstract works from the 1950s, Nay had found the "most vital liberation of the color" (quoted from: Claesges, p. 11).
• The vibe of the free and light-suffused improvisation "Omikron" is cheerful and elated.
• Part of the same private collection since the 1970s.
PROVENANCE:
Galerie der Spiegel, Cologne.
Private collection North Rhine-Westphalia (since 1970, ever since family-owned).
EXHIBITION:
Galerie Marbach, Bern, January 21 - February 13, 1953.
Ernst Wilhelm Nay – Bilder, Gouachen, Aquarelle und Zeichnungen, Galerie der Spiegel, Cologne, November 12 - December 15, 1954, cat. no. 18.
Ernst Wilhelm Nay – Gemälde und Aquarelle, Leopold Hoesch-Museum, Düren, January 16 - February 13, 1955.
LITERATURE: K. Schick, S. Colditz, R. Zieglgänsberger, E. W. Nay Retrospektive. Köln 2022, p. 21, plate 5.
"Imagination – life-affirming, a constant renewal of the universe – of the idea of the world."
Ernst Wilhelm Nay, 1952, quoted from: E. W. Nay. Gemälde und unveröffentlichte Schriften aus vier Jahrzehnten, 1985, p. 52.
It is always fascinating how Ernst Wilhelm Nay manages to express his pronounced empathetic order for color and form with this airy lightness. Comparable in style to a watercolor from 1952 (Claesges 52-110), Nay sets orange-red color nests, contrasts the dominant red of the composition with green spots, which are sometimes framed by a lemon yellow and covered by an irregular network of black strokes. In a 1952 essay entitled "Die Gestaltfarbe" in the magazine "Das Kunstwerk", the artist remarked: "My disposition points to color as a pictorial shape. So color is form. For me, color is design. I don't just give color priority before other pictorial means, but the entire pictorial activity of my art is determined solely by the colored design. […] Color can only be seen through sensation. But these feelings are based on a comprehensive, human ground that contains the colored form." (in: Das Kunstwerk, 6th year, issue 2, p. 4) The tune of the free, light-flooded improvisation "Omicron" is cheerful and lively. If one looks for the formal cause of this impression, it is probably the color elements subdivided into small islands of color, which in their rhythm have the effect of the sound of a cheerful sonata. The spatial placement of the nests of color alone organizes a floating, barely perceptible spatial structure over the light background of the partially unpainted canvas. Ernst Wilhelm Nay organizes a rhythm here that gives the picture its special character; an expressionistic motif with small, blurred, colorful elements. [MvL]
51
Ernst Wilhelm Nay
Omikron, 1952.
Oil on canvas
Estimate:
€ 100,000 / $ 110,000 Sold:
€ 475,000 / $ 522,500 (incl. surcharge)