Alexej von Jawlensky

Estate of the artist
Dr Oskar Wittgenstein, Munich (member of Der Blaue Reiter)
Private Collection, Germany (by descent from the above; sale: Sotheby's, London, 10th October 2001, lot 41)
Private Collection, London (purchased at the above sale)

Maria Jawlensky, Lucia Pieroni-Jawlensky & Angelica Jawlensky, Alexej von Jawlensky, Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings 1890-1914, London, 1991, vol. I, no. 160, illustrated p. 150

The board is sound. There are some scattered pinhead spots of old retouching at intervals throughout the sky. There is a thin 5cm. line of retouching above the roof of the house, a 10cm. line of retouching to the foliage of the trees at the centre of the work, and an L-shaped 5cm. line of retouching in the upper right quadrant. All retouching is visible under UV light. Apart from two pinhead-sized spots of paint loss to the grass in the lower right corner, a small 1cm. loss towards the lower right corner, and some minor medium losses to the right edge due to frame rubbing, this work is in good condition. Colours: The colours are fairly accurate in the catalogue illustration.
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The present work depicts the small town of Wasserburg am Inn in southern Bavaria, where Jawlensky stayed during the summer of 1906. In the summer of the following year he returned there with his son Andreas, this time for a shorter stay. Captivated by the town's picturesque surroundings, Jawlensky executed a number of landscapes during his stay in Wasserburg. Painted on the cusp of his artistic development, Wasserburg am Inn combines the pointillist application of paint by dabs of colour with a freer, more expressive style that was to characterise his mature œuvre. His Expressionist idiom, that blossomed several years later, is foreshadowed here in the artist's choice of pure, bright greens and reds.

During the early years of the twentieth century Jawlensky travelled widely, particularly in France, acquainting himself with recent developments in post-Impressionist and avant-garde art. In the autumn of 1907, on one of his many trips to the French capital, Jawlensky saw the major Cézanne memorial exhibition at the Salon d'Automne. It was in particular Cézanne's rhythmic application of pigment and his bright palette that appealed to Jawlensky's artistic sensitivities, and the present work clearly echoes the influence of this modern master, as well as that of Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin.