Ernst Wilhelm Nay

Galerie Günther Franke, Munich

Galerie Fricker, Paris

Stuttgart, Stuttgarter Kunskabinett, Moderne Kunst, 1962, no. 119, illustrated in colour

Galerie Änne Abels, Cologne

Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

Sao Paulo, Museu de Arte Moderne, 5th Bienal de Sao Paolo, 1959, no. 19

Munich, Galerie Günther Franke, Ernst Wilhelm Nay, 1960, no. 5, illustrated

Aurel Scheibler and Siegfried Gohr, Ernst Wilhelm Nay: Werkverzeichnis der Ölgemalde, 1952-1968, Cologne 1990, Vol. II, p. 174, no. 917, illustrated

"If I set a coloured dot on an empty surface an astonishing number of tensions were created. If I spread out the dot, the tensions increased. A second such disc, a third, a fourth – all the same size, already created a highly formal relation. A number of colours also emerged if I made each disc a different colour, they could be regarded as a chromatic sequence. The spaces between created forms could be developed quite mechanically with the same colours in a specific alteration, creating a corrugated surface so that interlinking resulted … This way of experimenting with a pictorial whole enables variations, but it also concealed an immense danger to my soul, which blazed out often enough. The monomania could be intensified to pathological proportions. It would have been quite inconceivable to surrender all that; one would have robbed the driving force of all tension, and no pictures would have resulted." (Ernst Wilhelm Nay in Exhibition Catalogue, Cologne, Josef-Haubrich Kunsthalle, Nay Retrospektive, 1991, pp. 36 & 37)

Jota is an outstanding example of Ernst Wilhelm Nay’s iconic ‘Scheibenbilder’ series in which he explores the dynamic and complex visual tension between colour planes. The development of this series revolved around the restriction of Nay’s hand to only circular forms when painting which provided the series with a compositional backbone and outstanding visual unity. Continuing this conceptual and visual investigation from 1954 to 1963 through all its combinations and facets, by the time he executed Jota in 1959 his ideas and philosophies had evolved into refined maturity that enabled him to engage with and exploit the surface tensions created by this strict working process.

Jota is set to an almost musical system that vibrates between the interaction of warm and cool colours. The constant reworking and disturbance of this balance creates a melodic rhythm that explores the affinities between abstract painting and music – ideas that had been popular in Germany since Kandinsky published his groundbreaking ‘Über das Geistige in der Kunst’ in 1911.