Couple, 1931 – 1934

About the Work

Between 1931 and 1935, Nolde carried out a series of watercolours he called "Fantasies". This workgroup contains numerous double portraits in the form of encounters between a woman and a man, as in the watercolour Couple. The artist composed the depiction from countless dabs and bands of colour intersecting and overlapping so densely as to develop an intense sense of depth. He also allowed chance to intervene in the painting process, for example by integrating the unintended splotches made by his paint-soaked brush at the upper right.

About the Acquisition

From 1900 onwards, the Frankfurt chemist and industrialist Carl Hagemann (1867‒1940) assembled one of the most important private collections of modern art. It included numerous paintings, drawings, watercolours and prints, especially by members of the artist group “Die Brücke”. After Carl Hagemann died in an accident during the Second World War, the then Städel director Ernst Holzinger arranged for Hagemann’s heirs to evacuate his collection with the museum’s collection. In gratitude, the family donated almost all of the works on paper to the Städel Museum in 1948. Further donations and permanent loans as well as purchases of paintings and watercolours from the Hagemann estate helped to compensate for the losses the museum had suffered in 1937 as part of the Nazi’s “Degenerate Art” campaign. Today, the Hagemann Collection forms the core of the Städel museum’s Expressionist collection.