SwissArtGallery · Documented identity

Heinrich Nauen

The German painter and printmaker Heinrich Nauen developed his career across several artistic centres, from Düsseldorf and Stuttgart to Laethem-Saint-Martin, Paris, Berlin and the Rhineland. Born in Krefeld in 1880, he died in Kalkar in 1940. He entered the Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts in 1898 and continued his training in Stuttgart from 1900 to 1902. He then joined the group of artists gathered around the sculptor George Minne in Laethem-Saint-Martin. In April 1905, following his marriage to the painter Marie von Malachowski-Nauen, he spent three months in Paris. He became interested in Impressionism, particularly Vincent van Gogh, and discovered Fauvism. He settled in Berlin in early 1906 and remained there until his final departure in 1911. The Rhineland nevertheless remained a regular place of work: in spring and summer he painted the landscapes of the Lower Rhine and Visé, on the Meuse, and opened a studio in Kempen.

In 1909, Nauen began a large canvas, The Harvest, which he exhibited in Paris the following year. The source reports that Henri Matisse congratulated him in a letter. In 1912, his works were shown at the Sonderbund westdeutscher Kunstfreunde und Künstler in Cologne. His first solo exhibition took place in 1914 at Alfred Flechtheim’s gallery in Düsseldorf, where he presented a cycle of paintings devoted to Drove Castle. According to the source, the canvases in this cycle are now held at the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum. After the First World War, he joined La Jeune Rhénanie and was appointed professor of painting at the Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts in 1921. His students included Ernst Walsken, Hermann Hundt, Jean Paul Schmitz and Hannes Schultze-Froitzheim.

Under the Nazi regime, his work was labelled “degenerate art” and he was compulsorily retired. In 1938, he moved with his wife to Kalkar; despite suffering from stomach cancer, he continued to create. A floral work, Zinnien in schwarzweißer Vase, is dated to around 1931 in a sales entry. This oil on canvas mounted on wood measures 98.3 × 65 cm and bears the signature “H. Nauen” at the lower left. The entry links it to number 617 in the Malcomess/Drenker-Nagels catalogue and gives its provenance as the artist’s estate, followed by a private collection in the Rhineland. It also refers to the catalogue of the artist’s work published by August Hoff and Helmut May in 1941, as well as to Eberhard Marx’s monograph published in 1966. After his death, several exhibitions were devoted to him: at the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum in Krefeld in 1948, the Städtisches Kunstmuseum in Bonn in 1966, the Commerzbank in Krefeld in 1967, and then in Krefeld and Bonn in 1980, on the centenary of his birth.

This profile brings together identity references for Heinrich Nauen and paintings, drawings and works on paper documented in auction catalogues.

Documented auction references

Kapuzinerkresse
tempera

Auction date : 2017-05-31

Published result : 8060 EUR

Including buyer’s premium

Estimate : 7000

View the lot at the auction house ↗

Sources and references

Reference record
LoC · Reference link only; institutional text and images are not reproduced.
Documentary source
Documentary source

SwissArtGallery documentary note based on the cited sources. Titles, media and qualifications are provided in the profile language; the original catalogue wording remains available in each record.
Profile updated : 2026-10-20

Do you own a work by this artist?

Contact SwissArtGallery

Continue exploring

Documented profiles →

Recently enriched profiles

See recently enriched profiles →

Heinrich Nauen

Documented auction references

Works recorded at auction

Bildnis Lore Sieben

Segelboote

Park Dilborn

Blumenstilleben mit heller Vase

Zinnias in a Black-and-White Vase

Kapuzinerkresse

Sources and references

Do you own a work by this artist?

Continue exploring

Otto Herbert Hajek

Leonhard Rausch

Antoni Suchanek