The Nolde Project
The idea for this book originated in March 2026 during an analysis of auction prices. It soon became apparent that, at the auction houses most relevant to this artist, the overwhelming majority of works offered for sale were accompanied by a certificate issued by the Nolde Foundation or one of its former directors. As the administrator of Emil Nolde's estate, however, the Foundation has never published these attributions itself.
Without a certificate issued by the Foundation, works by the artist are, for all practical purposes, impossible to sell—unless their authenticity can be established through their provenance, for example because they were sold by the Foundation itself in the past. The considerable authority exercised by individual experts and institutions in attributing or rejecting works is a matter of concern to many clients of Art Intelligence GmbH. This issue is one of the central themes explored in the book.
Figure 1: Front cover (right) and spine (left) of the hardcover edition, 268 pages, DIN A4, ISBN 978-3-9829198-0-5.
At the same time, Art Intelligence GmbH has long been committed to raising awareness of both the opportunities and the limitations of digital methods and artificial intelligence in the field of art history. The aim is to encourage art historians and other specialists to regard these technologies not as a threat, but as valuable tools that can support them efficiently in a wide range of tasks.
Accordingly, the publication introduces, in a clear and accessible manner, a variety of algorithms that extend well beyond the question of authenticity. These include methods for analysing auction prices, dating artworks, distinguishing between the hands of different artists, and the (partially) automated generation of catalogue entries and auction descriptions. All digital and AI-based methods presented in the book are discussed in the context of Emil Nolde and the research into his involvement with National Socialism, which has been the subject of extensive scholarly attention since 2013. For example, the publication examines what large language models such as ChatGPT know about this darker chapter of the artist's life and demonstrates how their responses can be improved significantly through appropriate prompting and retrieval methods. Rather than presenting only the strengths of artificial intelligence, the book also addresses its current limitations and weaknesses.
The publication also marks the beginning of a catalogue raisonné of Emil Nolde's watercolours. This first volume documents 264 works that have been offered at auction, focusing exclusively on portraits, depictions of people, and figures.
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