ADMIRED, FEARED AND DESIRED - EMIL NOLDE PAINTS WOMEN
With works by Arnold Böcklin, Eric Fischl, Edvard Munch, Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol
16 JULY - 31 OCTOBER 2010
"The people are my pictures. Laugh, exult, cry or rejoice," Emil Nolde writes in his autobiography. Although in all of his creative phases the painter focused again and again on woman as a motif, the feminine sex was never comprehensible for him. "In becoming accustomed to the innermost nature of women" lies the origin of his pictures, notes Nolde. "So much is incomprehensible - but I don't need to know."
The artistic temperament that Nolde - stimulated by the presence of women - experienced and illustrated extends from admiration and respect to desire, from unresolved tension to relaxed harmony. Whether the image worlds were fantasy or truly experienced made no difference to Nolde. For him the intensity of the feeling was important: it might extend from calm emotion to whirling ecstasy.
Dr. Jörg Garbrecht
Curator of the exhibition
With generous support of the Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung