Alexi von Jawlensky

| Alexej Georgewitsch von Jawlensky (March 13rd 1864 with Torjok, Russia - March 15th 1941 with Wiesbaden, Swiss) is a Russian painter expressionnist.

Biography

He is resulting from a family of the military minor nobility. The family lives successively several cities of the White Russia and current Poland to the liking of the assignments of the father colonel in the imperial army. In a Polish church he will know his first significant religious experiment by discovering a Icône with the miraculous virtues.

From 1877 to 1882 he studied with the School of the Juniors by Moscow and sees for the first time an exposure of painting in 1880 to the world Exposition event which upsets its life. He starts to paint and visits regularly the Galerie Tretiakov.

His/her father dies in 1872, it enters to the Military academy Alexandre, is named lieutenant in 1884 in station in Moscow. He lives downtown and attends the artists and collectors, this environment stimulates its interest for painting. It paints landscapes and the steppe tatare and in 1898 obtains its transfer for Saint-Petersbourg where the imperial Academy of the Art schools is of which it follows the courses.

In 1890 it met Ilya Repine, the realistic and romantic Russian great painter of the time. One of the pupils of Repine is Marianne von Werefkin, girl of the general ordering the fortress Pierre and Paul and who has already a certain name as painter. In 1895, invited in the property of family of Werefkin, it met Helene Neznakomova who will become his wife in 1922 after him to have given a Andréas son in 1902. Jawlensky leaves the army in 1896 with the rank of captain and accompanied by Wérefkin leaves for Munich to follow the courses of Anton Azbé, artist and professor recognized at the time. It meets Kandinsky which with left Russia one year auparavent. 1898 it leaves for the summer to Russia in company Werefkin and Helene, then Venice visit and leaves the school of Azbé shortly after its return to Munich. Its pictorial production of then is primarily died natural . It leaves for Lithuania and patient finds Werefkin in 1901, in the Crimea for his convalescence, 1902 Helene Neznakomova puts at the world their only son Andréas.

In 1905, he works with Carantec, in Brittany and thanks to the intervention of Diaghilev, Jawlensky sent six fabrics to the Salon of autumn, which were exposed in the Russian section and makes knowledge Matisse. Of return to Munich it becomes acquainted with the " Nabi " the painter monk and mystical Jan Verkade and of Paul Sérusier. It buys in 1908 a table of Van Gogh.et meets the Russian dancer Alexandre Sakharoff which becomes his/her close friend. It spends the summers to Murnau, in the south of Bavaria in company of Werefkin, Kandinsky, and Gabriele Münter, they belong to the founders of the New Association of the Artists of Munich (Neue Künstlervereinigung München) or NKVM, which held its first exposure to the Thannhauser gallery of Munich in December and which gave birth in 1912 to the group named " Der Blaue Reiter" (the Blue Rider). It meets Franz Marc, Emil Nolde takes part in the exposures of the Sonderbund and Neue Kunst at Golz in Munich. In 1914, first exposure of the Secession of Munich (Neue Münchner Sezession), then after the declaration of the war, takes refuge in Switzerland with Saint-Prex with Helene and Marianne. In a great insulation, it starts to paint the sight that it has its window: it is the series of the Variations , the painter engages on a way which will lead it to the dépouillement.puis with Zurich which became a meeting place for the European artists and writers fleeing the war and becomes acquainted with Jean Arp, Wilhelm Lehmbruck, and Marie Laurencin. Begin its series of the mystical Têtes and Visions of the Messiah , and of 1918 to 1921 it settles with Ascona and begins the series of the Abstract Têtes . Meet with the poet Rainer Maria Rilke and the sculptor Archipenko. In 1921 it leaves Ascona and settled with Wiesbaden.

After its separation of with Werefkin, he will marry Helene Nesnakomoff in 1922. In 1924 Emmy Scheyer creates the group of the << Quatres blue >> including/understanding Jawlensky, Lyonel Feininger, Paul Klee, Kandinsky to promote their works in the United States on the West coast. It meets LISA Kümmel into 1927 which will help it to classify and catalog its work during the last years of its life.

As of 1929 it is increasingly affected by the Arthrite which ends up paralyzing it. In 1938 it ceases painting, finishes dictating its memories with LISA Kümmel. Marianne von Werefkin dies on February 6th, 1938 with Ascona.
Jawlensky died in Wiesbaden on March 15th, 1941, at the age of seventy-seven years it is buried there with the orthodoxe Russian cemetery.

Works

Field of corn close to Carantec, 1905
Abend in Murnau, 1908, Munich
Portrait of Alexandre Sakharoff, 1909, Munich
the lady with the range, 1909, Wiesbaden
the young girl with the pink bunch, 1909, Wuppertal
Young girl with the hat with flowers, 1910
Nikita, 1910, Wiesbaden
Der Buckel, 1911
Self-portrait, 1912, Wiesbaden
the lady with the blue hat, 1912/13, Mönchengladbach
Spanish Woman, 1913, München
Variations - Night in Saint-Prex , 1916, Oil on paper with screen of flax on paperboard, 35,8 X 27,1 cm, Lenbachhaus, Munich.
Das Gebet, 1922, Munich
Abstrakter Kopf: Rotes Licht, 1930, Wiesbaden
Meditation, 1936, Kaiserslautern

Sources

Alexej von Jawlensky, catalogs exposure to Arles to Van Gogh Space in 1993, Actes Sud editor, ISBN 2-7427-00424-2.
Jawlensky/Werefkin, Catalogs Exposure to the Museum-Gallery of the Seita in Paris, 2000, ISBN 2-906 524-74-3.

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