Untitled
1961 · Pencil on paper
20 1/8 x 28 5/8" (50.9 x 72.5 cm)
Museum of Modern Art
WATTS INDEXThe canonical database of visual culture
Ernst Wilhelm Nay
German, 1902
ExpressionismAbstract Art
Representation
None documented
4
Institutional Exhibitions
7
Works in Collection
16
Assets Indexed
3
Authority-backed Facts
0
Publications Referenced
90%
Profile Completeness
Cultural Positioning
Movements
- • Expressionism
- • Abstract Art
Related Artists
No edges recorded
Influence Graph
No influence edges encoded yet.
Selected Institutional Exhibitions
View all exhibitions →No image
Abstractions
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1988–1989
No image
Drawing in Austria and Germany
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1985
No image
Contemporary Painters and Sculptors as Printmakers
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1964
No image
German Art of the 20th Century
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1957
About
Why this artist matters now
Ernst Wilhelm Nay was a German abstract painter whose work evolved from figurative Expressionism toward non-objective composition in the postwar period. Working primarily in oil on canvas, he developed a distinctive vocabulary of floating, interlocking circular forms and bold chromatic relationships that defined his mature style from the 1950s onward. His paintings eschew narrative or symbolic reference in favor of pure formal and coloristic investigation, positioning him within the broader European abstraction movement of the mid-twentieth century.
Source: Moma Bulk 2026 05 04 · Trust score: 92% · Updated 26d ago
Graph relationships
Taste overlap and adjacency
Movement
Expressionism
Medium
—
Related Artists
12 in graph
Institutional
Museum Collections
Canonical record
Artworks (7)
Record
Images
Related artists
Adjacent in the graph
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Andreas Gursky
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Thomas Ruff
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Record
Movements and affiliations
Institutional
Representation & Collections
In collection
Museum of Modern Art
New York, US
Market
Auction sale history
Houses that have sold works by this artist at auction
Record