The German Expressionist painter EMIL NOLDE (1867-1956) was born on August 7.
"Art is exalted above religion and race. Not a single solitary soul these days believes in the religions of the Assyrians, the Egyptians and the Greeks... Only their art, whenever it was beautiful, stands proud and exalted, rising above all time." - Emil Nolde
Emil Nolde was a fiercely individual German Expressionist whose paintings seem to burn from the inside out with riotous color and jagged emotion. Born in 1867 near the Danish border, he drew early inspiration from the drama of the North Sea landscape, later channeling that intensity into vivid florals, burning landscapes, and deeply stylized religious scenes. His career was complicated by his own politics and by the fact that the Nazi regime both courted and condemned him, ultimately banning his work as “degenerate.”
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City has one of Nolde’s best paintings, Masks.
