Emil Nolde: Colour is Life

Emil Nolde (1867-1956) was one of the greatest colourists of the twentieth century. He was an artist passionate about his north German home near the Danish border with its immense skies, flat, windswept landscapes and storm-tossed seas. But equally, he was fascinated by the demi-monde of Berlin's cafés and cabarets, the busy to and fro of tugboats in the port of Hamburg and the myriad of peoples and places he saw on his trip to the South Seas in 1914. Nolde felt strongly about what he painted, identifying with his subjects in every brushstroke, heightening his colours and simplifying his shapes, so that we, the viewers, can also experience his emotional response to the world about him. This is what makes Nolde one of Germany's greatest expressionist artists. 

This book, illustrating 100 paintings, drawings, watercolours and prints, covers Nolde's complete career, from early atmospheric paintings of his homeland right through to the intensely coloured, so-called 'unpainted paintings', works done on small pieces of paper during the Third Reich, when Nolde was branded a 'degenerate'.

Format: Paperback

Publisher: National Gallery of Ireland

ISBN: 9781911054276