This trenchant reconsideration of artist Emil Nolde's life and work brings to light his complicated legacy. Emil Nolde created some of the most powerful paintings of the Expressionist movement. Filled with intense color and painted with thick, rough brushstrokes, Nolde's pieces are arresting and haunting. Like many of his contemporaries, Nolde's work was banned as "degenerate" by the Nazis--in fact, his work was represented more prominently in the infamous exhibition of degenerate art than any other artist. But unlike most of the banned artists, Nolde was a Nazi sympathizer, and he entreated Hitler's regime to reconsider his prohibition. More than half a century after his death and in cooperation with his estate, the Nolde Foundation Seeb ll, Nolde's work is being reconsidered. This book features more than one hundred works, many of which have never been publicly displayed. It draws on unprecedented research that offers insight into Nolde's political beliefs and into the years in which he challenged the degenerate label.

Thematically arranged chapters look at various aspects of Nolde's oeuvre: his national socialism, imagery from the Bible and folklore, and reflections of his life. It sheds revelatory light on Nolde's "Unpainted" pictures--the watercolors he secretly created during the Nazi regime and it deconstructs the myths that surrounding Nolde's legacy.