Prophet

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Prophet

Edition: From edition of about 20
Germany, 1912
Prints; woodcuts
woodcut
Image: 12 5/8 × 8 3/8 in. (32.07 × 21.27 cm) Sheet: 16 3/8 × 12 3/4 in. (41.59 × 32.39 cm)
The Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies (M.82.288.239)
Not currently on public view

Label

Emil Nolde’s Prophet is one of the artist’s best-known works and exemplifies the German Expressionist woodcut....
Emil Nolde’s Prophet is one of the artist’s best-known works and exemplifies the German Expressionist woodcut. The Christ-like visage emerges from the sheet, evoking the Sudarium, a relic said to depict the face of Christ that miraculously appeared on a piece of cloth. But the print also retains the rough contours of carved wood, an image grounded in its material. This suggestion of an identity rooted in wood, a material with a mythological association to German history and culture, has disturbing resonances with Nolde’s later embrace of Nazi ideology.

Exhibition Label: The Expressive Gaze: Portraits and Self-Portraits, 2022, Erin Maynes
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Bibliography

  • Chipp, Herschel B. and Karin Breuer.  The Human Image in German Expressionist Graphic Art From the Robert Gore Rifkind Foundation.  Berkeley: University Art Museum, Berkeley, 1981.
  • Davis, Bruce. German Expressionist Prints and Drawings: The Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies. Los Angeles, CA: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1989; Munich, Germany: Prestel, 1989.

    View Volume 1 of this publication in LACMA's Reading Room

    View Volume 2 of this publication in LACMA's Reading Room

  • Barron, Stephanie et al. Degenerate Art: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1991.

    View this publication in LACMA's Reading Room

  • Ackley, Clifford S.; T. Benson; Victor Carlson.  Nolde:  The Painter's Prints.  Boston:  Museum of Fine Arts, 1995.
  • Mosel, Christel; Urban, Martin; Schiefler, Gustav. Emil Nolde: das graphische Werk.  Köln: DuMont, 1995-1996.
  • Papanikolas, Theresa.  Doctrinal Nourishment:  Art and Anarchism in the Time of James Ensor.  Los Angeles:  Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2009.
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