Alexej von Jawlensky
Still life with a yellow figure

Description

Alexej von Jawlensky left Russia after his studies at the Royal Academy of Art in St. Petersburg and moved to Munich with Helene Nesnakomoff (his future wife) and the painter Marianne von Werefkin. There he studied at the Azbé School of Painting and met Wassily Kandinsky. While travelling, Jawlensky became acquainted with the works of the French avant-gardists, which led him to develop a colouristic style of painting with a strong brushstroke. He worked together with Henri Matisse – later with Wassily Kandinsky, Gabriele Münter and Marianne von Werefkin in Murnau. Together with Kandinsky, he founded the New Munich Artists’ Association in 1909 and later joined the ‘Blauer Reiter’ group. In 1924 he formed the group ‘The Blue Four’ with Lyonel Feininger, Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee. The focus of his work was on colour and form; iconographic and narrative aspects took a back seat. His early work already showed a preference for portraits, landscapes and still lifes. His later work consists largely of depictions of the human face, which he increasingly abstracted and finally developed as ‘meditations’ into almost iconic, spiritualised devotional images.