







About Emil Nolde
Painted flowers and religious scenes with colours that make Fauvism look calm. Joined the Nazi Party expecting his art would be welcomed.

Where to see Emil Nolde
Ranked by works you can see in person.
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2 works
National Gallery of Art
Washington, D.C., United States
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35 works
Museum Ludwig
Gebäudekomplex der Kölner Philharmonie und des Museum Ludwig, Germany
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18 works
Museum Folkwang
Stadtbezirk II (Essen), Germany
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14 works
Nolde Museum Seebüll
Seebüll, Germany
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12 works
Bavarian State Painting Collections
Munich, Germany
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12 worksStatens Museum for Kunst
Copenhagen Municipality, Denmark
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9 works
Wallraf–Richartz Museum
Ungersbau, Germany
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8 works
Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum
Palace of Villahermosa, Spain
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7 works
Neue Nationalgalerie
Neue Nationalgalerie, Germany
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6 works
Brücke Museum
Dahlem, Germany
Also here (3)
Emil Nolde prints
Hand-finished archival prints from Emil Nolde's body of work.
Sunrise at the Sea - Emil Nolde
From £28.00
Mask Still Life III - Emil Nolde
From £37.00
The Missionary - Emil Nolde
From £28.00
Large Poppies - Emil Nolde
From £37.00
Flower Garden - Emil Nolde
From £28.00
The Tribute Money - Emil Nolde
From £28.00
Portrait of South Sea Islander - Emil Nolde
From £28.00
Holy Family - Emil Nolde
From £28.00
View all 50 museums
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5 works
Hamburger Kunsthalle
Hamburg-Altstadt, Germany
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4 works
Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe
Karlsruhe, Germany
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4 works
Alte Nationalgalerie
Berlin-Mitte, Germany
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4 works
Museum of Modern Art
Midtown Manhattan, United States
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3 works
Sprengel Museum
Sammlungszentrum Hannover, Germany
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3 works
Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York City, United States
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3 works
Städel Museum
Frankfurt, Germany
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3 works
Batliner Collection
Vienna, Austria
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3 works
Kunsthaus Zürich
Zurich, Switzerland
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3 works
Buffalo AKG Art Museum
Buffalo, United States
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3 works
Albertina
Palais Erzherzog Albrecht, Austria
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3 works
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister
Dresden, Germany
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2 works
Busch–Reisinger Museum
Cambridge, United States
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2 works
Lehmbruck Museum
Duisburg, Germany
Also here (3)
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2 works
Saint Louis Art Museum
St. Louis, United States
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2 works
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
Richmond, United States
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2 works
Angermuseum
Erfurter Waage, Germany
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2 works
Kunstmuseum Mülheim an der Ruhr
Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany
Also here (2)
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2 works
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Upper East Side, United States
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2 works
Art Institute of Chicago
Chicago, United States
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2 works
Kunsthalle Mannheim
Mannheim, Germany
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2 worksDetroit Institute of Arts
Midtown Detroit, United States
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2 works
Altonaer Museum
Ottensen, Germany
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1 works
Minneapolis Institute of Art
Minneapolis, United States
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1 works
National Galleries Scotland
Edinburgh, United Kingdom
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1 works
Cleveland Museum of Art
Wade Park, United States
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1 works
Princeton Art Museum
Princeton, United States
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1 works
Moderna Museet
Skeppsholmen, Sweden
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1 works
Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden
Dresden, Germany
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1 works
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Kansas City, United States
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1 works
Georgia Museum of Art
Athens, United States
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1 works
Neue Galerie
William Starr Miller House, United States
Also here (4)
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1 works
Harvard Art Museums
Cambridge, United States
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1 works
Brooklyn Museum
New York City, United States
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1 works
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Los Angeles, United States
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1 works
Vanderbilt Museum of Art
Nashville, United States
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1 works
Museum der bildenden Künste
Leipzig, Germany
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1 works
National Gallery of Ireland
Dublin, Ireland
Also here (6)
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1 works
Tate
Tate Britain, United Kingdom
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1 works
Yale University Art Gallery
Yale University Art Gallery Swartwout Building, United States
Can't travel? Bring Emil Nolde home.
See all Emil Nolde prints →Frequently Asked Questions
Where can I see Emil Nolde's work?
Nolde's paintings are held by many museums internationally. In Germany, major collections are at the Nolde Stiftung Seebüll; the Brücke Museum, Berlin; the Hamburger Kunsthalle; and the Museum Folkwang, Essen. The Nolde Stiftung Seebüll, near the German-Danish border, holds the most comprehensive collection. Nolde lived and worked at Seebüll from 1927 until his death in 1956. The Stiftung displays a rotating selection of his oils, watercolours, and prints. The Brücke Museum owns a number of Nolde's works from his time as a member of the Die Brücke group (1906-1907). The Hamburger Kunsthalle has a collection of German Expressionist art, including paintings by Nolde. The Museum Folkwang's holdings include important early paintings. Outside Germany, The Museum of Modern Art in New York has a selection of his prints. The Tate holds a number of his watercolours and prints. These and other institutions offer opportunities to view Nolde's diverse output.What should I know about Emil Nolde's prints?
Emil Nolde (born in Schleswig, 1867; died in Seebüll, 1956) was a painter, watercolourist, and printmaker associated with German Expressionism. He trained as a woodcarver before studying painting. In 1902, he adopted the name of his birthplace. Nolde's printmaking output includes around 525 works, created mostly before 1926. These are primarily unpublished etchings and woodcuts, often in black and white. He frequently developed his images through multiple states. Karl Schmidt-Rottluff introduced Nolde to woodcut techniques in 1906, when Nolde briefly joined the Brücke group; Nolde, in turn, taught Brücke members his etching methods. Lithography was another important medium for Nolde. He used it to experiment with colour, producing several large-scale works with numerous colour variations in 1913. His prints, like his other work, explored Expressionist themes. These included urban nightlife, northern regions, biblical scenes, and what he considered "primitive" subjects. Examples of his prints include the 1912 woodcut *Prophet*, and the colour lithographs *Jumping Jacks* (1913), *Actress* (1913), and *Russian Woman* (1913).Why are Emil Nolde's works important today?
Emil Nolde (born Emil Hansen in 1867) was a German-Danish Expressionist painter and printmaker. He is known for his intense colours and emotional force. Nolde's art is still relevant because of his handling of colour, and the subjective, emotional power of his works. Nolde briefly joined the *Brücke* group in 1906. This Dresden-based group shared Nolde's interest in graphic arts and admiration for artists such as Edvard Munch and Vincent van Gogh. His paintings often featured religious subjects, scenes from mythology, and figures in landscapes. For example, *Christ among the Children* (1910) uses light and dark to express the biblical story. Despite his support for the Nazi regime, the authorities later condemned Nolde's art. They confiscated his paintings and forbade him from painting. This complicated history adds another layer to the appreciation and interpretation of his art. Nolde died in 1956 in Seebüll, Germany.Emil Nolde facts?
Emil Nolde was born in North Schleswig, near Nolde, Germany, and changed his name to Nolde in 1902, after his birthplace. In 1906, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff invited him to join Brücke, and he taught Brücke members about woodcut techniques.Who is Emil Nolde?
Emil Nolde was born Emil Hansen in North Schleswig, near Nolde, Germany, on August 7, 1867. He worked as an ornamental carver in furniture factories before teaching ornamental drawing and modelling at the Industrie und Gewerbemuseum.What techniques or materials did Emil Nolde use?
Emil Nolde was a painter, printmaker, and watercolourist. He is known for a style involving intense colour and thick, gestural impasto. Nolde's method involved working impulsively, often changing his mind and piling colour on colour. He might also scrape the brush back and forth, or add brushloads of white into wet blues and blacks, despite knowing it was hopeless. Some paintings look like cracked moulds, while others are scratched and rubbed. Nolde trained as a woodcarver. Karl Schmidt-Rottluff introduced him to woodcut in 1906, and Nolde taught Brücke members his etching techniques. Nolde ultimately produced 525 prints, almost all before 1926, mostly unpublished etchings and woodcuts in black and white. He often developed his images through several states. He frequently used lithography to experiment with colour, including several monumental works printed in numerous colour variations in 1913. Colour was Nolde's chief means of expression. He had a physical relationship to colours, noting "it was as if they loved my hands".Who did Emil Nolde influence?
Emil Nolde, a key figure in German Expressionism, did not have direct students or a formal school. However, his approach to colour and intensely personal expression influenced later artists. Courbet's seascapes, particularly "The Wave", anticipated Nolde's own seascapes; Nolde's debt to Courbet's imagery and palette knife technique is clear. Nolde, along with other Expressionists, was familiar with museum collections in Berlin. Nolde was briefly a member of Die Brücke (The Bridge), a group of German Expressionist artists. Although he soon distanced himself from the group to pursue his own artistic vision, his involvement indicates a shared sensibility with artists like Erich Heckel, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. His departure from the Berlin Secession also cleared the path for younger artists. Christian Rohlfs may have been influenced by Nolde's colour work. Nolde's art, characterised by bold colours and emotional intensity, made an impact on the development of Expressionism.Who influenced Emil Nolde?
Emil Nolde was exposed to a number of artistic influences during his formative years. As a young man, he studied the work of artists like Edvard Munch and James Ensor, both of whom employed intense colour and explored themes of emotional distress in their paintings. Nolde's early training as a woodcarver also shaped his artistic sensibilities, instilling in him an appreciation for the expressive potential of simple forms. He enrolled at the Académie Julian in Paris in 1899; however, he soon left, frustrated with academic art training. Later, Nolde joined the artist group Die Brücke (The Bridge) in 1906. This short period of association exposed him to fellow Expressionist painters like Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Erich Heckel. Die Brücke artists shared an interest in primitivism, and they looked to non-Western art for inspiration. Nolde's engagement with their ideas encouraged him to experiment further with colour and form in his own work. Although his time with Die Brücke was brief, the connections he made there had a lasting impact on his artistic development.
Sources
Where to See guide aggregates verified holdings of Emil Nolde's works across the following collections.
- [1] museum Brooklyn Museum Used for: museum holdings.
- [2] museum Buffalo AKG Art Museum Used for: museum holdings.
- [3] museum Städel Museum Used for: museum holdings.
- [4] museum National Galleries Scotland Used for: museum holdings.
- [5] museum Nolde Museum Seebüll Used for: museum holdings.
- [6] museum Sprengel Museum Used for: museum holdings.
- [7] book Starr Figura, German Expressionism: The Graphic Impulse Used for: biography.
- [8] book guggenheim-guhe00solo Used for: biography.
- [9] book Masterpieces of western art : a history of art in 900 individual studies from the Gothic to the present day Used for: biography.
Editorial overseen by Solis Prints. Sources verified 2026-07-08. Click a source for details, or hover over [N] in the page above to preview.
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