Nay, Ernst Wilhelm

Description:

Berlin, 1902 - Köln, 1968
90 x 90 cm, R.
"Sternblattranken", 1951. Oil on canvas. Signed and dated in oil lower left, and titled and dated on the reverse of the stretcher.
Scheibler, 566.
Private collection, Nordrhein-Westfalen.
Kunsthandel Brigitte Büdenhölzer, Emmendingen.
Collection Monika and Horst Bülow, Leonberg, acquired there in 1996.
Exhibition:
"Ernst Wilhelm Nay - Bilder 1950/1951", Galerie Günther Franke, München 1951, cat. no. 15 (with exhibition label on the reverse).
I. Bienal do Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, São Paulo 1951, cat. no. 15.
"Ernst Wilhelm Nay - Ölgemälde, Aquarelle und Grafiken", Overbeck-Gesellschaft, Lübeck 1953, Kunstverein Bremen, Kunsthalle Bremen, Bremen 1953, Kunstverein Steinernes Haus, Frankfurt 1953.
Literature:
Ulrike Gross; Sebastian Preuss, "Zukunft und Erinnerung - Sechzig Jahre deutsche Kunst auf der Biennale São Paulo", in: "German Art in São Paulo, Deutsche Kunst auf der Biennale, German Art at the Biennial 1951-2012", Ostfildern 2013, pp. 63 ff. and p. 321.
With "Sternblattranken" from 1951, Ernst Wilhelm Nay presents himself at the height of his internationally pioneering "Rhythmische Bilder" ("Rhythmic Paintings"). This phase, which he developed from 1950 onwards, marks the breakthrough to the abstract pictorial language that made him one of the leading representatives of German postwar modernism.
In this painting, Nay orchestrates a pulsating web of circular, oval, and drop-shaped forms that unfold across the canvas in radiant reds, oranges, yellows, and greens. Black and white contrasts run through the composition like a rhythmic framework, while red lines link the forms into a vibrating score. "Sternblattranken" is suffused with a dynamic energy that immediately captures the viewer: the forms appear to circle, attract, and repel one another - a visual play of tension, movement, and balance.
The "Rhythmische Bilder" mark not only Nay’s artistic emancipation from figuration but also his entry into the international discourse of abstract painting. Within them, Nay found a distinctive language that critics soon described as genuinely musical - a painting that no longer narrates but instead resonates, sounds, and breathes. "Sternblattranken" is a paradigmatic example: here, colour is not a means of depiction but an autonomous force that makes rhythm and emotion directly tangible.
For collectors, this work holds special significance. With its size, its chromatic intensity, and its clear position within the artist’s oeuvre, it belongs to those paintings that establish Nay’s rank within the canon of modernism. Works from this phase are represented in major museums - such as the Museum Ludwig, Cologne, the Tate Gallery, London, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York - and are among the most sought-after pieces on the international market.
"Sternblattranken" stands exemplarily for the rise of a new German art after 1945, one that sought and found renewed dialogue with the international avant-garde. It is a work that translates the artistic freedom of the postwar years into pure painterly energy - a major work within Nay’s "Rhythmische Bilder" and a highlight of any collection devoted to Classical Modernism.