.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
In the October of 1951, Nay left his studio in Hochheim, in the Taunus region of Germany, to settle in the still war-scarred city of Cologne. His move from the tranquility of the countryside to the vitality and sophistication of the Rheinland metropolis, precipitated Nay's definitive move away from figuration to the abstraction of his mature period. Orange merkurisch is emblematic of the ensuing Rhytmische Bilder, the rythmic pictures, that were to preoccupy the artist for the coming two years. Indebted to Nay's experience of avant garde music at the time, the jagged brushstrokes and the juxtaposition of bright colours evoke the dissonances and angularities of Stockhausen, Strawinsky and Schönberg's musical work.
The present work was exhibited at the Cologne gallery of Ferdinand Möller (see fig.1), the celebrated dealer responsible for mounting important exhibitions of German avant garde art. Amongst the artists championed by Möller where the members of the Brcke, such as Heckel, Schmidt-Rottluff, Kirchner, Nolde and Pechstein. In the years after the war, Möller's reputation did much to support the newer generation of artists such as Meistermann, Uhlmann and of course, Nay.
The present work was exhibited at the Cologne gallery of Ferdinand Möller (see fig.1), the celebrated dealer responsible for mounting important exhibitions of German avant garde art. Amongst the artists championed by Möller where the members of the Brcke, such as Heckel, Schmidt-Rottluff, Kirchner, Nolde and Pechstein. In the years after the war, Möller's reputation did much to support the newer generation of artists such as Meistermann, Uhlmann and of course, Nay.