Ernst Wilhelm Nay

Retrospective

With around 120 paintings, watercolors and drawings, this retrospective takes into account all stages of Nay’s multifaceted work. However, it not only follows the chronology, but also illuminates central themes, motifs or concepts that have shaped Nay’s thinking over the decades, and thus enables a view on a complex work as an organic whole. At the same time, the show […]
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Retrospective

With around 120 paintings, watercolors and drawings, this retrospective takes into account all stages of Nay’s multifaceted work. However, it not only follows the chronology, but also illuminates central themes, motifs or concepts that have shaped Nay’s thinking over the decades, and thus enables a view on a complex work as an organic whole. At the same time, the show […]
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Late

Late paintings 1965 – 1968 Being at the pinnacle of his creative power, Nay re-examines his art for a last clarification. His review leads him to a radical simplification of his forms and to a reduction of his colour range. With all his energy and discipline he has the courage to abandon the expressive structure of his “Augenbilder” and to […]
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Eyes

Paintings with the motive of eyes 1963 – 1964 With his so called “Augenbilder” Nay opens a new chapter, which throughout his oeuvre is evident, but now arises with more impact: the expression. This new tendency towards increasing expressionism began to manifest itself in the large-scale paintings of previous years when Nay tried to change the lineaments of his disc […]
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Rhythmic

Rhythmic period 1952 – 1953 In October 1951 Nay leaves Hofheim and moves into a modest top floor apartment in Cologne, a city still scarred by the damages of the war. After having moved from his rural domicile into the lively, urban postwar euphoria of the city on the Rhine Nay reacted with a new liberalized style, finally completely free […]
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Fugale

Fugale paintings 1949 – 1951 “Paintings are not created in a vacuum”, so Nay. They express the artist’s historic and personal influences in an analogous and metaphorical manner. If his “Hekate” paintings can be seen as his way of getting over the war and postwar years, his “Fugale” Paintings signal the renaissance of his art. Due to his second marriage […]
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France

Works painted in France 1940 – 1944 In 1940 Nay is a soldier in the German infantry, initially based in Southern France, later transferred to the small town of Auray in Britanny. There he meets the art collector Hans Lühdorf (1910-1983), who organizes Nay’s transfer to become a map drawer for a unit based in Le Mans in 1942, shortly […]
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