Papuan Woman
Artist
Emil Nolde
(German, 1867–1956)
Date1914
Mediumopaque watercolor and black ink on thin, slightly textured, cream Japan paper
Dimensions47.5 x 35.1 cm (sheet)
ClassificationsDrawings
Credit LineManuel K. and Ina R. Berman Collection
Terms
Object number2003.75
Label TextIn the autumn of 1913, Nolde and his wife, Ada, joined a group of German researchers on a year-long scientific expedition that took them across Asia to Papua New Guinea. There Nolde worked as an ethnographic draftsman, documenting its flora and fauna while simultaneously composing numerous informal portraits like the unidentified woman seen here.
Worcester’s watercolor of a woman in profile is unique among Nolde’s surviving portraits from that trip. Most are depictions of forward-facing men. Nolde returned to Germany in 1914 due to the outbreak of World War I. Though he was a Nazi sympathizer until at least the later 1930s, he was also a life-long anti-colonialist advocate. He feared that Western culture would corrupt the few remaining Indigenous cultures.ProvenanceAcquired from the Marlborough Gallery, LondonOn View
Not on view
