About Alexej von Jawlensky

Born: 1864 in Torschok
Died: 1941 in Wiesbaden

At the relatively late age of 25, Alexej von Jawlensky began his artistic training in St. Petersburg in 1889 as a former officer of the military academy. He studied with Ilya Repin and met Marianne von Werefkin and Helene Nesnakomoff, his future wife. In 1896 he moved to Munich with both of them to attend a private art school. Here he met Wassily Kandinsky, with whom he developed an intense friendship. The artist undertook numerous trips to France and exhibited 10 paintings at the "Salon d'autonomne" in 1905. In Paris Jawlensky also met Henri Matisse, whose paintings in the style of Fauvism influenced his work throughout his life. In 1908 he worked with Kandinsky, Marianne von Werefkin and Gabriele Münter for the first time in Murnau. It was here that the idea of founding the 'Neue Künstlervereinigung München' (New Munich Artists' Association) was born, which the four painters and other Munich artists joined together to form in 1909. In 1911 the 'Blaue Reiter' (Blue Rider) was launched as a new big idea of artistic collaboration. In 1913 Jawlensky takes part in Herwarth Walden's First German Autumn Salon in Berlin. Due to the First World War he moves with his family and Marianne von Werefkin to Lake Geneva, where he begins his abstract heads in 1918. In 1921 Jawlensky settles in Wiesbaden, supported by the gallery owner Hanna Bekker vom Rath. A severe arthritis disease and paralysis have hindered the painter ever since. In 1924, the group "Die Blauen Vier" (The Blue Four) was founded with the participation of Kandinsky, Klee, Jawlensky and Feininger. In 1933 Jawlensky was banned from exhibiting by the National Socialists. The following year he began a series of small-format 'Meditations' - these quiet, spiritual and mystical images of the human face and the symbolically luminous colours used in Expressionism are characteristic of his work. In 1937, 72 of his works were confiscated as 'degenerate'. Jawlensky died in Wiesbaden in 1941.