Ninetta Sombart (1925–2019)

a brief appreciation by her son Peter Bruckner

“The experience of beauty creates a bridge from the material world to the spiritual world.” —Rudolf Steiner

Ninetta Sombart, the extraordinary, much beloved painter, died on January the 24th, 2019, just a few months shy of her 94th birthday, May 2nd. She had begun to wonder why she was still alive, as she could no longer paint in the last few years. I told her that as long as she was alive, she was like the center pole of a very large tent that provided a space for friends and family to meet one another—a place to be nourished by her art, her humor, and her insights. From her spacious studio in Arlesheim that she had designed, one could see the Goetheanum to which people from all over the world made their pilgrimage, climbing up the steep hill. Many of them also paid a visit to Ninetta, where they were able to breathe a different air and see the world from another vantage point. Leaders of the Anthroposophical Society, as well as of the Christian Community and the Camphill Communities, were also often guests at her table, taking advantage of a neutral place to meet one another.

Although this opportunity is now gone, the legacy that remains are her paintings along with thousands of postcards, calendar pictures, and books that have found their way all around the globe. The altar paintings for the Christian Community alone—there are over thirty of them spread throughout congregations from Australia to America, from Norway to South Africa—would be a life’s achievement. Yet she only started to paint in the style she is now known for, which has already found eager emulators, when she retired in her early sixties from her job as the PR director of a large engineering company. While still in America she had achieved fame, if not fortune, as part of the “Magic Realism” movement.

With four children, five grandchildren, and four great grandchildren, Ninetta was very much part of this world. About the worlds she frequented whilst painting, on the other hand, she was surprisingly reticent. “Der Maler malt und schweigt.” (The painter paints and remains silent.) On a rare occasion that she did share, she told me that a painting was only finished when she could feel its presence. It had to be more than only beautiful. It had to be. She held true to the maxim that many an artist before and since has had: “Art is not about, Art is.”

One reason why her paintings remain so striking in their color and drama is the personal technique that she was able to develop. I discovered one the secrets of the shimmering, glowing colors my mother was able to achieve when I was commissioned to paint several large paintings myself: after no less than sixty thin washes of pigment, the magic started to happen. This technique enabled her to create what I have chosen to call “auric colors.” These colors have no common names, for they vibrate on higher frequencies. Red, green, and purple may shimmer together in unison as one color. If they were to be mixed together, they would only create gray or brown. In all the history of painting, such colors have sel dom been created or used. The bright, bold colors of modern art can feel oddly flat in comparison.

Another quality that makes Ninetta’s paintings unique is the areas of profound darkness, deeper than any black pigment out of a tube. This allows the radiance of the colors and the brilliance of the light to be all the more intense. Yet the darkness also holds these colors, grounds them, guards them. When standing in front of an actual painting of Ninetta’s, one becomes a witness to the profound mystery of light and darkness giving birth to color.

As I am now the curator of several of her pictures that I have been displaying in Rose Hall, Camphill Kimberton Hills, I have been astonished how powerfully a single painting is able to transform an entire space. Her images of the New Testament allow the viewer to become part of a process that takes place within the painting and can extend to and include the viewer. Her paintings have the quality of words, each one a different manifestation of the Logos, and can be felt to be nourishing—images that have the ability to come alive within one.

Ninetta’s mother, Corina Sombart, was trained as an icon painter, and was responsible for the interiors of several orthodox churches. An icon is a sacred image, a meditation picture, painted during constant prayer and fasting. Ninetta saw her paintings as a continuation of this tradition, even calling them “modern icons.” Yet upon meeting her, many were dismayed at how little Ninetta fit the mold of a holy person, and were unable to reconcile their expectations with the personality they met. Others of course were greatly relieved that she never gave herself airs nor allowed others to idolize her.

From her Romanian mother, she inherited the great hospitality that provided so many from near and far with food and a place to sleep while visiting Dornach. On the other hand, her Prussian nature—she was born and grew up in Berlin—allowed her to be extremely practical and detail-oriented, always having her finances as well as her kitchen in order. Her years in the States—in Spring Valley and Nyack, NY—softened her critical Prussian nature with a great love of American humor (Peanuts, Calvin and Hobbes, Zits, etc.) and an unconventionality that the serious and conventional Swiss found surprising.

I am confident that her paintings will continue to be windows to another world and a source of inspiration to many. Maybe it will not take almost a hundred years, as it did Hilma af Klint, for her art to be known in wider circles.

Ninetta Sombart, The Evening Meal

Ninetta Sombart, The Evening Meal

Ninetta Sombart, Madonna of the Grotto

Ninetta Sombart, The Wondrous Catch of Fish

Ninetta Sombart, Jacob's Wrestling with the Angel

An interview with Ninetta Sombart by Jonathan Steddal for his documentary “The Challenge of Rudolf Steiner” is at www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8DQd3Z7tnc and a selection of prints and postcards of her paintings are available at ninettasombart.com