German abstract painter Ernst Wilhelm Nay
Ernst Wilhelm Nay (1902, Berlin – 1968, Cologne) was a German abstract painter influenced by L'Art Informel.Ernst Wilhelm Nay studied under Karl Hofer at the Berlin Art Academy from 1925 until 1928. His first sources of inspiration resulted from his preoccupation with Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Henri Matisse as well as Caspar David Friedrich and Nicolas Poussin. Nay's still lifes, portraits and landscapes were widely acclaimed. In 1931 Nay received a nine-months' study bursary to the Villa Massimo in Rome, where he began to paint in the abstract Surrealist manner. On the recommendation of the Lübeck museum director, C.G. Heise, Nay was given a work grant financed by Edvard Munch, which enabled Nay to spend time in Norway and on the Lofoten Islands in 1937. The «Fischer- und Lofotenbilder» represented a first pinnacle of achievement. That same year, however, two of his works were shown in the notorious exhibition of «Degenerate art» and Nay was forbidden to exhibit any longer. He wasn't even allowed to paint nor buy ready made colours.
