Emil Nolde (1867-1956)

Nolde spent long periods during 1911 in the Völkerkunde Museum in Berlin, studying and sketching their important collection of tribal art. Kleiner Teufel depicts a wooden figure in the museum of which Nolde is known to have executed a preparatory study, now in the Nolde-Stiftung, Seebüll (illustrated). The present work is one of a group of paintings created by Nolde in 1911 which testify to his preoccupation with tribal art (including Urban nos. 414-418).

Kleiner Teufel was chosen for several important early one-man exhibitions, including at Hagen and Munich just one year after the work was completed.