Gabriel Emile Edouard Nicolet
Strandpromenade, um 1900

Alfred Flechtheim and Gabriel Emile Edouard Nicolet

The painter Gabriel (Émile Édouard) Nicolet’s family came from Switzerland. He trained as an artist at academies in Liège, Düsseldorf and Paris. His œuvre includes genre scenes, portraits, interiors and landscapes in which he liked to depict the leisure pursuits of the bourgeoisie as well as of simple folk. Stylistically, his painting was influenced by the French Impressionists. He belonged to the ‘Malkasten’ artists’ association in Düsseldorf in 1881–85. He spent 1887/88 in Morocco where he worked as an illustrator and correspondent for the ‘Illustrated London News’. In addition, Nicolet made illustrations for various magazines belonging to the Cassel & Cie publishing house. While living in London he was a member of the Society of Portrait Painters. As a result of his portraits in particular, for which he gained considerable acclaim, he participated in numerous exhibitions, including one in New York in 1916. He received several awards for his work, including the Medal of the Belgian Government in 1878 and a bronze medal in 1889 at the World’s Fair in Paris, followed by silver in 1900.

Nicolet was represented by his work 'Spa' in 1913 at the opening exhibition exhibition of Flechtheim’s Düsseldorf gallery and was attributed to the ‘Düsseldorfer Malerschule’ in the catalogue. As early as in summer 1913, Flechtheim presented the Düsseldorfer Kunstmuseum with two beach pictures. As Flechtheim outlined in his diary, the intention behind making such a gift to Karl Koetschau, the first director of the Düsseldorfer Kunstmuseum, was to establish himself in his new role as an art dealer.