Features ‘From Figuration to Physis and Quantum Physics: the Late Works of E.W.Nay in Context’, a text by Joachim Pissarro.
Ernst Wilhelm Nay (1902 - 1968 in Berlin, Germany) was one of the most renowned German artists of the 20th century. He achieved his first success in the late 1920s when his paintings began to be purchased by major German museums, because of his strongly individual combination of Expressionist and Surrealist painting styles. Throughout his career, color remained central, but he progressively simplified forms and cooled his palette—sometimes applying daring color combinations—to create spaceless compositions. Nay’s late paintings are characterized by dynamically set two-dimensional forms and clear colors transcending the pictorial space.