.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
In 1913 Nolde and his wife Ada bought a house in Utenwarf, into which they moved in 1916. Both at Utenwarf and at Seebll, where the couple moved in 1927, Emil and Ada created elaborate gardens that became the wonder of the local communities. Nolde himself had words of enraptured enthusiasm for his garden at Utenwarf: 'Der Garten auf Utenwarf, in seiner der Sonne schräg zugewandten Lage die Warft hinab, war besonders schön zugewachsen und selten blumenreich. Die leuchtendroten Rosen lagen in Wellen den Sdhang hinunter, und oberhalb um den schmalen Teich, der ganz voller Fische war, blhten alle schönsten Stauden. Er war eine Sehenswrdigkeit geworden. "Ein kleines Paradies", sagte man. Ein ganz kleines Paradies! Aber die Einbildung, daß in der Marsch keine Blumen wachsen können, war widerlegt. Die Menschen von Mögeltondern und sonstwoher pilgerten hinunter und gingen still auf dem Sommerdeich am Garten vorbei, stehend, schauend' (Mein Leben, Cologne, 1976, p. 329). It is indeed interesting to note that Nolde christened his first creation 'ein ganz kleines Paradies' - as he did for the title of the present oil, he would refer to his sumptuous gardens as 'small paradises' in which he found endless inspiration. As P. Vergo writes, 'At Utenwarf, the peasants would come from miles to stare at varieties of flowers they had never seen in their lives, while at Seebll the gardens surrounding the house, which are still preserved as Nolde and his wife conceived them, belong almost as much as the paintings themselves among the glories of the Nolde-Museum as it exists today [fig. 1]. It was this immediate environment which provided Nolde with the subject matter for the majority of his later flower paintings, which show many of the varieties that grew all around the house, although in the case of certain more exotic species, his depictions had their starting point in visits the artist made to the Botanical Gardens in Berlin during 1923-24' (Emil Nolde, Exh. Cat., The Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, Dec. 1995-Feb. 1996, p. 118).
The Kleiner Blumengarten depicted in this oil is certainly the 'kleines Paradies' of Seebll's garden, where Nolde spent most of 1951, his last productive season. In the autumn of the same year, after a fall in the garden in which he broke his upper arm, Nolde was compelled to recover in the Flensburg Hospital. He was not to handle his palette anymore: his stunning oils of the end of the fourth decade are his ultimate visual interpretations of Seebll, his definitive, intense pictorial bequest. It is, thus, particularly significant that Kleiner Blumengarten was in the collection of Dr. Ludwig Berger, Nolde's legal advisor in the 1950s, and the lawyer of the Seebll Foundation Ada and Emil Nolde from the artist's death in 1956 until 1980. Dr. Gerber played a very important role in the last creative years of the artist, assisting Nolde in the monumental project of the Foundation, and contributing to the writing of his will.
The Kleiner Blumengarten depicted in this oil is certainly the 'kleines Paradies' of Seebll's garden, where Nolde spent most of 1951, his last productive season. In the autumn of the same year, after a fall in the garden in which he broke his upper arm, Nolde was compelled to recover in the Flensburg Hospital. He was not to handle his palette anymore: his stunning oils of the end of the fourth decade are his ultimate visual interpretations of Seebll, his definitive, intense pictorial bequest. It is, thus, particularly significant that Kleiner Blumengarten was in the collection of Dr. Ludwig Berger, Nolde's legal advisor in the 1950s, and the lawyer of the Seebll Foundation Ada and Emil Nolde from the artist's death in 1956 until 1980. Dr. Gerber played a very important role in the last creative years of the artist, assisting Nolde in the monumental project of the Foundation, and contributing to the writing of his will.