Ernst Wilhelm Nay

Ernst Wilhelm Nay 1902 - 1968 Gelb und Silbergrau. 1961. Oil on canvas. Signed and dated in the lower right. Signed, dated, titled, and inscribed with a direction arrow on the reverse of the stretcher. 200 x 125 cm (78.7 x 49.2 in). [AR]. • ULTIMATE EXPRESSIVENESS The pure abstraction of Nay’s disk in an impressive large format. • CONTRAST A striking juxtaposition of light and dark, yellow and silver-gray. • TRANSATLANTIC Exhibited in Pittsburgh alongside works by Albers, Motherwell, and Rothko as early as 1961. • MUSEUM QUALITY Comparable vertical-format works are at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, the Städel Museum in Frankfurt am Main, and the Guggenheim Museum in New York. PROVENANCE: M. Knoedler & Co., Inc., New York. John Day and Carroll Stuchell, Pittsburgh (acquired from the above in 1967, with label). M. Knoedler & Co., Inc., New York. Private collection, Zurich. Private collection (since 1994; Sotheby’s London, Nov. 30, 1994, lot 15). From a German collection. EXHIBITION: The 1961 Pittsburgh International Exhibition of Contemporary Painting and Sculpture, Carnegie Institute of Art, Pittsburgh, Oct. 27, 1961–Jan. 7, 1962, cat. no. 284 (with label). LITERATURE: Aurel Scheibler, Ernst Wilhelm Nay. Catalogue raisonné of oil paintings, Vol. 2: 1952–1968, Cologne 1990, p. 225, CR no. 995 (with color illustration on p. 212). - - Fritz Usinger, Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Recklinghausen 1961, p. 25 (illustrated on p. 56). The 42nd Pittsburgh International, in: Art International, vol. V, no. 8, Oct. 20, 1961 (illustrated on p. 73). “Anyone viewing Nay’s paintings feels stirred and moved by the power of an immediate, inherently dynamic appearance [.]” Quote from the prominent German art historian Max Imdahl, in: ibid., Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Stuttgart 1962, p. 5. Called up: December 4, 2026 - ca. 17.26 h +/- 20 min.

Estimate:£166,866.40

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