Alexej von Jawlensky

The artist's studio
Lyonel Feininger, Germany
Edmund Fürst, Berlin & Israel (acquired by 1935, artist and brother-in-law of Lyonel Feininger)
Eva Fürst, Israel (by descent from the above)
Private Collection, Israel (by descent from the above)
Dr. Fritz Nagel, Stuttgart (by descent from the above and sold: Christie's London, June 27, 1995, lot 213)
Acquired at the above sale

Zurich, Kunsthaus Zurich & Lausanne, Fondation de l'Hermitage, Jawlensky in der Schweiz, 2000-01, no. 42

Maria Jawlensky, Lucia Pieroni-Jawlensky & Angelica Jawlensky Bianconi, Alexej von Jawlensky: Catalogue Raisonné of the Watercolors and Drawings 1890-1938, vol. IV, London, 1998, no. 2299, illustrated in color p. 427

This work is painted on a very fine piece of linen mounted onto a board. The paint layer is clean and unvarnished. There is a slight vertical crack through the red triangle in the forehead that has received retouching. This cracking begins on the top edge and runs down through the eye on the left side of the face. This line of cracks is very slightly raised, but the paint layer is not unstable and the work can be hung as is. The above condition report has been prepared by Simon Parkes, an independent conservator who is not an employee of Sotheby's.
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's reliance upon color as a means of visual expression derived from the examples of the Fauve painters of France. Jawlensky first met these artists, including Henri Matisse and Kees van Dongen, shortly after the Fauves' first exhibition at the Salon d'Automne in 1905. He was inspired by their wild coloration and expressive brushwork, which had a profound impact on his painting for the next several years. Like Matisse, who famously remarked, "I used color as a means of expressing my emotion and not as a transcription of nature," Jawlensky believed that color communicated the complex emotions of his subjects (Jacqueline & Maurice Guillaud, Matisse: Rhythm and Line, New York, 1987, p. 24). He demonstrated the effectiveness of his theory in this striking portrait, much like a number of others completed earlier within the same time period.

Another important influence on Jawlensky's painting during this period was the multi-dimensional approach of the Cubists, whose fragmented and highly abstracted compositions he had seen in Paris. As Clemens Weiler has noted, "Cubism...supplied Jawlensky with the means of simplifying, condensing and stylizing the facial form even further, and this simplified and reduced shape he counterbalanced by means of even more intense and brilliant coloring. This enabled him to give these comparatively small heads a monumentality and expressive power that were quite independent of their actual size" (Clemens Weiler, Jawlensky, Heads Faces Meditations, London, 1971, p. 105). These artistic movements are eloquently synthesized by Jawlensky and transformed into a personal and unique artistic expression.

In the present work, the artist employs a palette of purples, blues, reds, and greens, rendering the facial features of his sitter with broad strokes. The model in this instance is perhaps a fabricated figure, but Jawlensky was concerned less by the realistic portrayal of his subject than with capturing the emotional impact of the composition as a whole. In frontal view, the sitter’s powerful gaze captures the viewer's attention, and her eyes create a provocative focal point for the entire picture. As he once wrote to a prominent art collector, "What you feel in front of my paintings is that which you must feel, and so it seems to you that my soul has spoken to yours—therefore it has spoken" (quoted in James Demetrion, Alexej Jawlensky: A Centennial Exhibition, Pasadena Art Museum, 1964, p. 22).

 

Fig. 1 Kazimir Malevich, Portrait de femme, 1930, oil on board, State Russian Museum, Saint Petersburg