Re-introducing Ernst Wilhelm Nay

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Readers of this book ‘will be pleased to know rather more than they did before about the life and times’ of E.W. Nay, says Veronica Davies

Ernst Wilhelm Nay by John-Paul Stonard and Pamela Kort

'…the name of Ernst Wilhelm Nay (1902–68) does not easily trip off the tongue of English-speaking art lovers'. [Norman Rosenthal, Introduction]

It is to be hoped that this book may make his work more widely known in the 'English-speaking' world. A quick search reveals that there is only one work by this important figure in post-war German painting in the Tate collection, and just five in the collection of MoMA in New York.  The reception of Nay’s work in Germany, America and Great Britain seems to have hit a high spot in the mid to late 1950s, but later changes in the art world meant that such large abstract paintings no longer enjoyed the critical high ground.  Now 'English-speaking art lovers' have a hugely valuable view of his work in relation to the German art world of the time. The book introduces some of its key figures, such as Will Grohmann and Werner Haftmann, as well as discussing Nay's not uncontroversial participation in early Documenta exhibitions.

Nay's dates – 1902–68 – underscore the fact that he lived through some very turbulent times in the history of Germany, and indeed of the world.  Nay developed his mature style in the historical context of his youth and early career in Berlin, moving 'away from the everyday materialism of his earlier work' during the 1930s. Nay's war service was spent in the Wehrmacht in France, and a fortuitous meeting enabled him to spend the period from 1942 onwards painting in a studio in Le Mans, while nominally working as a cartographer.

 It was in the post-war period that Nay's career really took off. His paintings engaged with a series of motifs, such as the mythological connections of the immediate post-war years and the 'musical graphemes that dominate Nay's painting around 1950',  becoming progressively more abstract, and, in the case of works such as Das Freiburger Bild (1956), on a very large scale.  The discussion is well supported by the number and quality of the colour reproductions, as well as a range of contemporary photographs.  It was particularly interesting to see colour plates of the three works that formed the Drei Bilder im Raum, which were installed above the heads of visitors at Documenta III in 1964, more usually seen in a black and white photograph of their installation.

It is greatly to the credit of Stonard and Kort that they have produced a volume that amply makes up for the previous lack of a comprehensive monograph on Nay in the English language.  Altogether, the authors are to be commended for this valuable contribution to the literature in English on post-war German art: it may be that in future travelling 'English-speaking art lovers', encountering Nay's large and brightly-coloured canvases in German art museums, will be pleased to know rather more than they did before about the life and times of the artist who made them.

Ernst Wilhelm Nay by John-Paul Stonard and Pamela Kort is published by Ridinghouse, 2012 £19.95. 224pp. fully illustrated in colour & mono.ISBN 978-1-905464-54-8 (hbk)