Emil Hansen was born in the village of Nolde near the Danish border in August 1867. At the age of seventeen he became the apprentice of a wood carver near Flensburg, while at the same time practicing his skills as a draughtsman. Between 1888 and 1891 he worked as a wood carver and draughtsman in furniture manufactories in Munich, Berlin and Karlsruhe. In the evenings he took classes at the arts and crafts school. Between 1892 and 1897 he taught technical draughtsmanship at the Industry- and Trade Museum in St. Gallen. He travelled to Milan, Vienna and Munich and through his many hiking tours developed a fascination with mountain scenery. Nolde designed postcards with caricatures of personified mountains which became such a commercial success that he cut short his apprenticeship and moved to Munich in 1898 to work as a painter. Although he was not allowed into the Academy he did study privately and went to Paris for one term to enroll at the Akadémie Julian. In 1901 he settled in Copenhagen. Here he met Ada Vilstrup whom he married in 1902. On the occasion of his marriage he changed his name to that of his birthplace, Nolde. He moved to the island of Alsen in 1903, but spent the winter months in Berlin where he rented a studio.

Through an exhibition in Dresden in 1906 the artists of the “Brücke” became aware of his work and invited him to join their association. For two years Nolde took part in the group’s touring exhibition projects and in 1907 he spent several weeks in Dresden. But at the end of the year he left the group - the differences in age and temperament were too substantial for the loner Nolde. In Berlin he painted the nightlife of the metropole and studied the art of indigenous peoples in the Völkerkundemuseum. In 1913/14, fulfilling one of his dreams, he and his wife accompanied a medical expedition to the South Pacific via Russia and China. A great number of watercolours was the product of this journey. In 1927 the Noldes moved to Seebüll where Nolde desinged and buildt a house and studio for himself. From 1931 on he worked on his autobiography.

For Nolde the Third Reich brought defamation. His paintings were confiscated from the museums and his work was a special focus of the exhibition “Entartete Kunst” (“Degenerate Art”). From 1941 on he was prohibited from painting at all. Secretly he paint small scale watercolours which he called “unpainted pictures”. After the war, between his eightyth and eightyfith birthday he gained various honorations and awards. Nolde died at Seebüll in 1956 and was buried next to Ada in the garden of the Seebüll estate. Their will established the “Seebüll Ada and Emil Nolde Foundation”.

1867 Emil Nolde born August 7 on his father's farm in the village of Nolde on the German-Danish border. The family name is Hansen; he takes the name Nolde in 1901. He enjoys the happy childhood of a peasant boy close to nature, but is not at all suited to a farmworker's life. He starts to draw and paint very early.
1884-88 In summer 1884 Nolde is apprenticed to a furniture workshop and woodcarving school at Flensburg, where he is trained as furniture designer and wood carver. He does free creative drawing as well.
1888-90 Nolde works as wood carver and designer in various furniture factories in Munich, Karlsruhe and Berlin. At Karlsruhe he occasionally attends the Kunstgewerbeschule.
1891 Berlin. In the autumn Nolde applies for a teaching post at the Kunstgewerbeschule in St. Gallen and is accepted.
1892-98 Works in St. Gallen as teacher of decorative drawing and modelling. Visits to Milan, Munich, Vienna. Drawings and watercolours. In 1894 produces grotesque masks and a series of post cards in which he personifies the Swiss mountains as giants. 1896 Nolde paints his first oil painting, "Die Bergriesen" (The Mountain Giants). The mountain post cards, of which two are printed in the periodical 'Jugend', arouse great interest. Nolde has a large number printed and in ten days sells 100,000 copies. These unexpected earnings enable him to give up his post in St. Gallen. He decides to become a free-lance painter.
1898-99 Nolde moves to Munich, where he attends the private art school of Friedrich Fehr. At times he works in Oberpolling and makes sketches in the Pinakothek. In summer of 1899 he attends the Holzel-Schule at Dachau; in autumn he goes to Paris.
1900 In Paris Nolde attends the Academic Julien, studies the Louvre collections and copies Titian's "Allegoric des D'Avalos". In summer he leaves Paris, going first to his home, then to Copenhagen.
1901 Nolde meets Ada Vilstrup. He spends the summer in Lildstrand, a fishing village in northwest Denmark. In autumn he returns to Copenhagen and marries Ada Vilstrup. They move to Berlin.
1902 Berlin. Nolde sends some pictures to the Berlin Secession, which are rejected. In spring returns home. Death of his mother, Ada ill. In autumn Nolde moves to Flensburg, where he finds a garret.
1903 Nolde settles on the island of Alsen. In Duderup on the South coast he rents a fisherman's cottage, and builds a small studio on the beach out of planks.
1904 On Alsen he paints the picture "Fruhling irn Zimmer" (Spring indoors) and does a series of etchings, "Phantasien" (Fantasies). Nolde and his wife in financial straits. Ada goes to Berlin to earn money as a music-hall singer. She collapses; to restore her health they go to Taormina.
1905 Italy, Taormina and Ischia. In summer return to Germany, where Ada tries to regain her health in various sanatoria. Nolde lives in Berlin and on Alsen.
1906 Nolde visits Osthaus in Hagen, goes to Soest where he meets Christian Rohlfs. In Hamburg makes the acquaintance of Gustav Schiefler. Exhibits some paintings in Weimar and Dresden. The painters of the 'Briicke' group see his pictures with great enthusiasm and invite him to become a member of the 'Briicke'. Schmidt-Rottluff comes to Alsen for three months at Nolde's invitation. Nolde produces his first woodcuts and a series of flower paintings. Visits Berlin, where his picture "Erntetag" (Harvest Day) is exhibited by the Secession. Brief encounter with Edvard Munch.
1907 Close friendship with the 'Briicke' painters, whom Nolde visits in Dresden, where his wife lies in a sanatorium. Exhibitions at the Folkwang Museum, Hagen, and the Galerie Commeter, Hamburg, some pictures at the Berlin Secession. First series of Lithographs. Rosa Schapire writes first article on Nolde in the periodical "Hamburg". An article by Gustav Schiefler on Nolde's graphic art appears in the "Zeitschrift fur bildende Kunst". Nolde leaves the 'Briicke' at the end of year, but stays friendly with the members of the group.
1908 Stays in Soest, then in Jena, where Hans Fehr, Nolde's friend since the St. Gallen days, is a University lecturer, and Ada finds a sanatorium. Summer on Alsen, visits to Copenhagen and Stockholm.
1909 Alsen. In spring Nolde retires to Ruttebiill on the West coast of Schleswig, where his first religious paintings are created, among them "Abendmahl" (The Last Supper) and "Pfingsten" (Whitsun). Spends winter in Berlin.
1910 84 pictures produced, several on biblical themes. Also etchings and woodcuts of the port of Hamburg, and, in winter of 1910-11, the pictures of Berlin night life. The jury of the Berlin Secession rejects all works by Nolde (as in the previous two years) and all those by his friends in the 'Briicke' group. Nolde in a sharp open letter attacks Max Liebermann, President of the Secession, causing a public scandal. Nolde excluded from the Secession.
1911 The series " Herbstmeere" (Autumn Seas), and the sequence of religious etchings. Visits to Holland and Brussels, meeting with Ensor. Nolde takes intense interest in the art of primitive peoples and works on a book about it. In winter 1911-12 paints the great nine-part work "Das Leben Christi" (The Life of Christ) in Berlin. First volume of Gustav Schiefler's "Das graphische Werk von Emil Nolde" published.
1912 Berlin, Alsen and Ruttebiill. "Das Leben Christi" exhibited at Folkwang Museum in Hagen; at the World's Fair in Brussels, where it was also planned to show the work, the exhibition is cancelled owing to protest from the Church. Nolde takes part in the second exhibition of the "Blaue Reiter" and in the great exhibition of the "Sonderbund" in Cologne, where the entire European avant-garde is assembled.
1913 Berlin and Alsen. In autumn Nolde travels as member of an expedition to New Guinea. The route goes via Moscow, Siberia, Manchuria, Korea, Japan, China, Manila and the Palawan Islands to New Guinea.
1914 New Guinea. In summer return via Celebes, Java, Burma, Aden, Port Said, Genoa, Zurich. Due to outbreak of War the luggage, containing all the oils painted in the South Seas, gets lost. The pictures are found again in 1921, in the loft of a warehouse in Plymouth. 1915 Stays in Alsen and Berlin. 88 pictures, including the "Grablegung" (Deposition) and five other religious paintings.
1916-17 Alsen and Berlin. In 1917 Nolde leaves the island of Alsen for good. Henceforth he spends the summer months in Utenwarf on the West coast of Schleswig, the winter in Berlin.
1918-20 Mixed exhibitions in Hanover, Munich, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Kiel. 1919 Nolde visits Denmark, in spring he spends some weeks on the Hallig Hoege, where he paints a series of grotesque fantasies.
1921 Visit to England, where he recovers the South Sea paintings. Travels on via Paris to Spain - Barcelona, Granada, Madrid, Toledo. Return via Bordeaux, Lyons and Geneva.
1922-25 Utenwarf, Berlin. 1925 Nolde visits Italy: Venice, Rapallo, Florence, Arezzo.
1926 Nolde leaves Utenwarf, which had become Danish by a plebiscite in the border country in 1921. He buys the wharf of Seebull and the adjoining farm. The University of Kiel confers an honorary degree on him.
1927 Move to Seebull and building of studio. On occasion of his 6oth birthday, great exhibition organised by Probst in Dresden, others in Hamburg, Kiel, Essen, Wiesbaden.
1928-32 Work continues on house and studio in Seebull, garden laid out. In Berlin, Nolde moves in 1928 from his studio in Tauentzienstrasse to Bayernallee in the Grunewald. Nolde spends the summer of 1930 on the island of Sylt. 1931 he is made a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts. Exhibitions in Basle and Ziirich, and for the first time at Museum of Modern Art in New York.
J933-37 Beginning of National Socialist propaganda against "Kulturbolschewismus"'. In 1935 Nolde falls ill with cancer of the stomach, spends many months in hospital in Hamburg and undergoes an operation. 1937 in course of action against "Entartete Kunst , 1,052 works by Nolde confiscated from public galleries. Some of his pictures hung in the notorious exhibition "Entartete Kunst".
1938-40 Seebull, Berlin. Nolde spends winter in the Swiss mountains. The Buchholz Gallery, New York, holds a Nolde Exhibition in 1939. In 1940 Nolde gives up his home in Berlin and retires completely to Seebull. 1938 begins work on the " Ungemalte Bilder'.
1941 Nolde excluded from the "Reichskunstkammer" (State-controlled Academy of Fine Arts); he is forbidden to exhibit or to paint.
1942-45 Ada falls ill in 1942 and during the next few years is frequently in hospital. 1942 the Berlin studio is bombed out and Nolde loses all his drawings and a number of oils.
1946 The Landesregierung (District Council) of Schleswig-Holstein makes Nolde a Professor. Death of Ada.
1947-52 On his 8oth birthday, exhibitions in Kiel and Ltibeck. In 1948 Nolde marries Jolanthe Erdmann, in the same year visits Switzerland. At the XXVI Biennale in Venice, Nolde receives prize for graphic art. 1952 receives order "Pour le merite". In 1951 Nolde paints his last oil paintings.
1956 Emil Nolde dies on April 13. "Ada and Emil Nolde Foundation Seebull" set up.

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