EMIL NOLDE* (Nolde, Burkal Sogn 1867 - 1956 Seebüll) Two chameleons by the pond 1923/24 watercolour/paper 34.5 x 48 cm signed Nolde Dr Martin Urban of the Nolde Foundation, Seebüll has confirmed the authenticity of the watercolor ESTIMATE °€ 20000 - 40000 STARTING PRICE °€ 20000 Hans Emil Jansen became famous under the name of his birthplace Nolde in the Danish, formerly Prussian, part of Schleswig-Holstein that had been in existence since the end of the First World War. From 1902 he named himself after the village. At that time he mainly painted "lyrical" landscapes. Nolde always paid particular attention to nature and its artistic interpretation, and today he is one of the most important exponents of German Expressionism and the most important watercolorist of his time. Among the colourful expressionists, Nolde stands out brilliantly with the radicality and luminosity of his colouring. With his powerful colour virtuosity, he not only gave watercolors the same value as paintings in his own work, he also regained this genre's lost social reputation. At his father's urging, Nolde initially trained as a carver and draftsman at the Flensburg School of Applied Arts. After six years as a drawing teacher at the St. Gallen trade school, further stations included Adolf Hölzel's private painting school in Dachau and the Académie Julian in Paris. Nolde's increasingly colourful flowers and garden pictures from the Danish island of Alsen impressed the Brücke artists. In 1906 they welcomed Nolde into their midst; however, after a dispute with Schmidt-Rottluff, Nolde left the bridge again the following year. In 1909 Nolde, who had lived in Berlin with his wife Ada since 1904, became a member of the Berlin Secession. When the jury, including Max Liebermann, rejected works by Georg Tappert and other expressionist artists the following year, there was a break and, with Nolde's participation, the formation of the New Secession. This opened its first exhibition on May 15th under the title "Rejected from the Secession Berlin 1910". From 1913 to 1914, Nolde took part as a draftsman together with Ada in the medical - demographic German - New Guinea expedition of the Reich Colonial Office. At that time he was an avowedly cosmopolitan artist, fascinated by the "exotic strength" of Africa, Central America and Southeast Asia. The journey to the "German South Seas" took place in an orderly manner via Moscow, Siberia, Korea, Japan and China. However, the return journey, via the Suez Canal, France and Switzerland, turned out to be an adventure, especially from August 1914 onwards due to the outbreak of war. Nolde later dedicated a separate volume of memoirs ("World and Homeland", 1936/1965) to the South Seas voyage. In 1919, 26 watercolours and another 24 sheets from Nolde's famous South Sea voyage were donated to the Berlin National Gallery by the Reich Colonial Office, which had become obsolete due to the war. These watercolours, 24 of which were confiscated by the Nazis in 1937, are considered the highlight of Nolde's oeuvre. It is not known when and where exactly Nolde met the two chameleons he portrayed. Together with a very similar watercolour by Nolde, which also shows two chameleons, the present picture is dated to the period 1923 to 1924 - before the move to Seebüll in North Frisia in 1926. It is possible that neither the extremely pretty watercolor nor any drawing template of any kind were actually created in the wild, but in the Berlin Zoological Garden. However, at least indirectly, the watercolour is certainly a late echo of the South Seas voyage that had such a lasting impact on Nolde and his artistic development. The animal on the right, positioned a little lower, is in some respects a repeat of the other specimen. Even the branches on which the chameleons sit are very similar in their curvature. The blue that surrounds the two reptiles was only applied later and carefully moved around the animals, leaving plenty of paper free. Together with the entire indefinite background, which appears to be dissolved into coloured clouds of steam, which evokes and seems to imitate the humid heat of the tropics, the animals create an attractive, rhythmic pattern. PLEASE NOTE: The purchase price consists of the highest bid plus the buyer's premium, sales tax and, if applicable, the fee of artists resale rights. In the case of normal taxation (marked ° at the estimate), a premium of 24% is added to the highest bid. The mandatory sales tax is added to the sum of the highest bid and the buyer's premium. This amounts to 13% for paintings, drawings, graphic works and sculptures and 20% for photographs and all other items. The buyer's premium amounts to 28% in case of differential taxation. The sales tax is included in the differential taxation.