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Red-Haired Girl

A work made of oil on canvas.

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  • A work made of oil on canvas.

Date:

1919

Artist:

Emil Nolde
German, 1867–1956

About this artwork

When Emil Nolde painted Red-Haired Girl, a closely cropped figure depicted with palpable emotion and fiery color, he was already widely acknowledged as a leading Expressionist artist. One year later, he joined the National Socialist German Workers’ (Nazi) Party, which eventually denounced paintings in this style.

Red-Haired Girl, along with hundreds of other works by Nolde, was confiscated by the Nazis in 1937 and displayed as an example of “degenerate art” in the infamous Entartete Kunst exhibition, which ridiculed modern art as morally corrupt and celebrated the party’s systemic attacks on artists. Despite the denunciation of his work, Nolde maintained his affiliation with the Nazis throughout the war. While Max Beckmann and Marc Chagall, whose works are on view on adjacent walls, were forced to defect from Europe and Otto Dix was arrested as an “unreliable intellectual” for his anti-fascist protests, Nolde remained aligned with the Nazis. He sought their approval and embraced their ideology while also arguing that paintings like this were “vigorous, durable, and ardent.”

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Modern Art

Artist

Emil Nolde

Title

Red-Haired Girl

Place

Germany (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1919

Medium

Oil on canvas

Inscriptions

Signed, l.r.: "Emil Nolde."

Dimensions

65.4 × 40 cm (25 3/4 × 15 3/4 in.)

Credit Line

Bequest of Mr. and Mrs. George H. Tagge

Reference Number

2002.589

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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