Shropshire art expert succeeds in quest to prove painting is by famous German artist

Abigail Molenaar from Halls Fine Art in Shrewsbury began her quest when the painting reputedly by German-Danish painter and printmaker Emil Nolde (1867-1956) was consigned by a Midlands art collector in the spring.

 After extensive personal research, Abigail referred the painting to The Nolde Foundation at Seebull in Germany. After weeks of waiting, she was delighted to receive the expert verdict that the painting was indeed by the artist and has now been added to the official record of his work.

The painting, newly titled ‘Red Blooming Cacti’, has now been valued at between £25,000 and £35,000 and will be sold in Halls Fine Art’s modern and contemporary art and design auction on March 19. 

“The owner and I were anxiously awaiting the verdict of The Nolde Foundation,” said Abigail. “Thankfully, the research, time and effort spent on the painting, which was sent to Germany for assessment, has been worthwhile.

 “The painting has been in the collector’s family since the 1940s and we now look forward to marketing and selling it in March.”

 A member of Die Brücke (The Bridge), a group of German expressionist artists formed in Dresden in 1905, Nolde was one of the first oil and watercolour painters of the early 20th century to explore colour.

 He is known for his brushwork and expressive choice of colours, with golden yellows and deep reds appearing frequently in his work.

 His watercolours include vivid, brooding stormscapes and brilliant flowers, a preoccupation which reflected his interest Vincent van Gogh’s paintings.

 Despite being a staunch supporter of Nazi Germany, Nolde found his modernist paintings condemned by Adolf Hitler as “degenerate art” and 1,052 of his works were removed from museums.

 Some were included in the Degenerate Art exhibition organised by the Nazi Party in Munich in 1937, which presented 650 works of art confiscated from German museums.

Despite his protests and a personal appeal to Nazi Party, Nolde was under strict orders not to paint, even in private, after 1941. However, he created hundreds of watercolours and called them the ‘Unpainted Pictures’.

In 1942, Nolde wrote: “There is silver blue, sky blue and thunder blue. Every colour holds within it a soul, which makes me happy or repels me, and which acts as a stimulus. To a person who has no art in him, colours are colours, tones tones...and that is all. All their consequences for the human spirit, which range between heaven to hell, just go unnoticed.”

He died in 1956 in Seebull, where The Nolde Foundation was created the same year. A museum dedicated to his life and work opened in 1957.