Ernst Wilhelm Nay

Ernst Wilhelm Nay was born in Berlin. He studied painting in the mid-twenties at the Berlin Academy for Fine Arts under the painter Carl Hofer. He achieved his first success in the late 1920s when his paintings were purchased by major German museums. His strongly individual combination of Expressionist and Surrealist painting styles were winning over collectors.

In 1942 Nay was stationed in Le Mans as a soldier and cartographer. A French sculptor placed his atelier at Nay's disposal and enabled him to continue working as an artist in secret, producing works in an intense Expressionist style. In 1950 the Kestner Gesellschaft Hannover mounted a first retrospective of Nay's work. The following year Nay moved to Cologne where he developed an abstract language of painting combining a highly expressive graphic style and a deep sensitivity to color and tonality. In his Rhythmic Paintings Nay took the final step towards entirely non-representational painting placing color purely as figurative values.

Representing Germany in the 1956 Venice Biennale and exhibiting at the Kassel documenta are milestones marking Nay's breakthrough on the international art scene. He especially received international recognition for his Disc Paintings in which round color surfaces organize subtle modulations of space and color. 

Nay began to develop his late style in his atelier in Bavaria in the mid 60s. Color remained central but he simplified forms and cooled his palette to create spaceless compositions. Nay's "Late Paintings" are characterized by dynamically set two-dimensional forms and clear colors transcending the pictorial space.