Alexej von Jawlensky

Consul Endrulat, Hamburg

Sale: Lempertz Auktionen, Cologne, June 11-12, 1963, lot 308

Galerie Marie Rutz, Düsseldorf

Frederick B. Anton, Beverly Hills (1969)

Donn D. Beemann, Los Angeles (1969)

Private Collection, Los Angeles (1998)

Hollis Taggart Galleries, New York

Private Collection, United States

Acquired from the above

Maria Jawlensky et al., Alexej von Jawlensky: Catalogue raisonné of the Oil Paintings, vol. II, Addendum to Volume I, London, 1992,  no. 1464, illustrated p. 504

This work is in excellent condition. Under ultra-violet light: no evidence of inpainting.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Jawlensky painted this mountainous landscape around 1912 while working in the Bavarian Alps.  Between 1908 and 1910, he was working with Vassily Kandinsky and Gabrielle Münter in this alpine region, and together they devised the highly colorful and energized style that would come to be one of the principal components of the movement known as German Expressionism.  The artists working in Germany at the time owed their newfound freedom with color and simplification of form to the stylistic innovations of the French Fauves.  Jawlensky's completion of this landscape coincided with the formation of the avant-garde artistic group known as Neue Kunstlervereinigung Munchen (NKVM).  As a founder of this group, he pioneered a style that would attract a following and change the direction of German art for the next decade.   The NKVM would later splinter to form Der Blaue Reiter, the legendary artists' collective based in Munich. 

Although he is remembered as one of the premier German Expressionist painters, Jawlensky was, in fact, a Russian expatriate who had completed his formal artistic training in St. Petersburg in the 1890s.  The aesthetic influence of his eastern heritage carries over into his most avant-garde paintings, and we can see traces of that influence here.   His palette in this picture and his black outlining of the hills of the landscape call to mind the shimmering gold-leaf of Orthodox icons and the bold delineations of Russian folk art.