Ernst Wilhelm Nay - Late Paintings

About

During his artistic career, starting from the 1930s to his death in 1968, Nay has passed through various phases. They differ remarkably from each other. But the change from the period of ‚disc‘ and ‚eye‘ paintings to the late work around 1965 was particularly radical and surprising. The contemporaries were confused, because the colors clarified and the compositions were consistently kept within the picture plane. Moreover, Nay eliminated all graphical-gestural brush strokes, so that the colors filled up the flat shapes in a unified tone.

Whereas the artist once used parallels to music as inspiration, now he seems to be exploring the laws inherent in all natural phenomena. Cells, stripes, spindles, ornamental chains, germs, cores are embedded into a dynamic language of forms, which can often be interpreted as a microcosm, but sometimes also as a view into the universe.

In his later years, Nay was keenly interested in advanced natural science and the way it influences a new image of a human. His late work, therefore, integrates figurative elements in the realm of abstract forms. On the whole, it offers a utopian commentary on the integration of modern man into a new world that brings together tradition and the contemporary.

Siegfried Gohr