Born in Deventer on 2 April 1896, Max Nauta spent a large part of his youth in Friesland, before moving to Alkmaar where he attended the Arts and Crafts School, followed by the Amsterdam Art Academy. Enabled by a scholarship from Queen Wilhelmina, he traveled to Cologne, Dresden, Munich, Paris, Chartres, London, and finally Prague. In Czecho-Slovakia, he encountered epic artist Alfons Mucha (1860-1939) and organized the first exhibition of Dutch art in Prague.

Nauta’s naturalistic drawings present a tendency to impart a visionary dream; his forms and coloration scheme channel a mystic’s voice. Especially his Amsterdam city scenes testify to the artist’s complete originality of vision. Nauta loved to browse around small streets and narrow canals, almshouses and hidden alleys and corners, docks and old houses which he rendered with a great sense of atmosphere. With a simplification of his use of light-effects and color as demonstrated in his snow-covered street scenes, the greenish-yellow tints of the houses against the glow of the snowpack portray a city in true New Objectivity style, prominent throughout Europe in the 1920s.