Emil Nolde was a German Expressionist known for his paintings and prints of flowers, landscapes, and folklore. The vibrancy of color and rough-hewn mark-making Nolde used in works such as Stormy Sea (1930), bore the influence of Vincent van Gogh. “There is silver blue, sky blue, and thunder blue. Every color holds within it a soul, which makes me happy or repels me, and which acts as a stimulus,” the artist once mused. Born Emil Hansen on August 7, 1867 in Nolde, Germany (present-day Germany), he was raised in a family of farmers in a rural area by the sea. Expected to join the family farm, Nolde instead pursued a career in furniture carving before beginning to paint. In 1906, while in Berlin he briefly joined the...