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Max Pechstein
Nelly, 1910

Artwork Info

Artwork title
Nelly
Artist name
Max Pechstein
Date created
1910
Classification
painting
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
20 3/8 in. × 20 7/8 in. (51.75 cm × 53.02 cm)
Date acquired
1984
Credit
Collection SFMOMA
Purchase
Copyright
© Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst Bonn, Germany
Permanent URL
https://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/84.9
Artwork status
On view on floor 2 as part of Open Ended: SFMOMA's Collection, 1900 to Now

Audio Stories

Who was Nelly?

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transcripts

SFX: period music, raucous party scene, distinctly from another time 

  

NARRATOR:

Berlin, 1910. Painters, writers, intellectuals. The German Avant Garde. It was an amazing time — and she was there. But who was she? All we’re told is that her name was Nelly. Look at how she gazes off to her right, smiling like she’s amused by something just outside the frame. Max Pechstein painted her. He was part of a collective of German artists who were committed to a free, bohemian lifestyle. They set up a communal art studio where they painted together, printed manifestos, and arranged wild gatherings and spectacles. It was a time when few people socialized outside of their race and class. But in their circle, dancers and cabaret singers mingled with intellectuals and radicals, from all walks of life. 

 

SFX: big round of laughter rises, like someone has just told a joke 

  

NARRATOR: 

But back to Nelly. Her strappy red dress and dangling earrings give us some clue as to who she might be. She was probably a performer from one of the many troupes travelling around Germany at that time. There are a few rare photographs of the collective’s studio taken around 1910. One of those photographs is captioned “three black performers, Milli, Sam and Nelly.” Another identifies two dancing women as “Nelly and Sidi Heckel.” The Nelly in both of those images is almost identical to the woman we’re looking at here.   

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