After several years of service in the Russian army, Alexei Jawlensky landed in Saint Petersburg and enrolled in the Academy of Art. Seven years of schooling there led him to search for a personal style beyond the stultifying rigidity of academia, so he moved to Munich. In the blossoming art scene of the German city, he befriended another Russian expatriate, Vassily Kandinsky. Alongside his countryman, Jawlensky experimented with line, color and form in ways that would inform the rest of his career. Jawlensky repeatedly executed portraits, at first enlivening the background, the costume and the sitter’s face with color, as in Feather Hat—Olga (the picture is thought to depict Olga von Hartmann, a friend of Marianne von Werefkin, Jawlensky’s companion). Around the time of this picture, Jawlensky visited with Henri Matisse and Emil Nolde, an experience that led him to strip his portraits of potentially distracting information and instead focus only on the face. This later approach can be seen in this portrait of Hélène Nesnakomov (b. 1881), mother to Jawlensky’s only son, Andreas. Here Jawlensky defines the sitter’s face—now occupying nearly the entire picture plane—with blotches of contrasting turquoise, orange, plum, brown and black.
Details
- Artist Name: Alexei Jawlensky (Russian, 1864-1941)
- Title: Helene
- Date: 1916
- Medium: Oil and pencil on pink-gray cardboard
- Dimensions: 9-1/4 x 6-7/8 in. (23.5 x 17.5 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Museum, The Blue Four Galka Scheyer Collection
- Accession Number: P.1953.144
- Copyright: © Norton Simon Museum
Object Information
Galka Scheyer, probably in the 1920s;
Pasadena Art Institute, Pasadena, 1953-1954;
Pasadena Art Museum, Pasadena,1954-1975;
Norton Simon Museum, 1975.
Jawlensky exhibition
- Seattle, Cornish School, 1939-03 to 1939-03
The Blue Four: Feininger, Jawlensky, Kandinsky, Paul Klee
- New York, Buchholz Gallery, 1944-10-31 to 1944-11-25
Alexei Jawlensky (1864-1941)
- Norton Simon Museum, 2007-05-04 to 2007-11-05
Feininger, Jawlensky, Kandinsky, Paul Klee. The Blue Four Galka E. Scheyer Collection
- Pasadena, Pasadena Art Museum, 1955-05-27 to 1955-08-30
The Galka Scheyer Collection: Klee, Nolde, Jawlensky, Moholy-Nagy, Schmidt-Rottluff, Schwitters, Archipenko, Kandinsky, Lissitzky, Feininger, Kirchner, Dix_1
- La Jolla, Art Center in La Jolla, 1960-07-05 to 1960-08-14
Visions and Icons: the Art of Alexei Jawlensky
- Norton Simon Museum, 1990-01-18 to 1991-04-14
Gaze: Portraiture After Ingres
- Norton Simon Museum, 2009-10-30 to 2010-04-05
Permanent and Loan Collection, 1973
- Pasadena Museum of Modern Art, 1973-01-30 to 1973-12-31
My Four Kings: Galka Scheyer and the Blue Four
- Norton Simon Museum, 2002-12-13 to 2003-04-14
- The Blue Four Galka Scheyer Collection, Norton Simon Museum of Art at Pasadena, 1976, no. 124 pp. 48-66
- Jawlensky, Maria, Lucia Pieroni-Jawlensky, and Angelica Jawlensky, Alexej von Jawlensky: Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, 1914-1933, 1992, no. 748
- Weiler, Clemens, Alexej von Jawlensky, 1995, no. 171
- Barnett, Vivian Endicott, The Blue Four Collection at the Norton Simon Museum, 2002, no. 141 pp. 124-125
Additional Artwork by Artist
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