Emil Nolde (1867-1956) and Emil Schumacher (1912-1999) are strongly connected by their respective imperative searches for the painterly expression of their inner pictorial worlds. Both artists make reference to the legacy of Romanticism, loyal to its central demand that an artist should not only paint what he sees but even more important, what he sees in himself. Nolde’s painting is distinguished by strong, contrasting colors and a high degree of abstraction. Schumacher’s œuvre, on the other hand, is characterized by a life long changing between abstraction and figuration, embedded in the sensual materiality and coloration of his paintings.

This exhibition, conceptualized in collaboration with the Nolde Foundation Seebüll, links Nolde’s expressionist land- and seascapes with Emil Schumacher’s gestural ‘soulscapes’. For the first time the visual connection between Expressionism and Abstract Expressionism is illuminated through the works of two of their greatest masters.