Collection: Alexej von Jawlensky

Alexej Georgewitsch von Jawlensky (1864–1941) was a Russian expressionist painter who moved to Germany in 1896. After training in Russia under Ilya Repin, he settled in Munich. There, he joined the Neue Künstlervereinigung München (New Munich Artist’s Association) at its founding in 1909 and later co-founded Der Blaue Reiter with Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, and Gabriele Münter in 1911. Jawlensky acquired German citizenship in 1934 and spent his final years in Wiesbaden.

Jawlensky’s work shifted from early portraiture and landscape studies toward a distilled, semi-abstract formalism. His mature style featured bold outlines and saturated hues, influenced by Russian icon painting, folk art, and the chromatic intensity of Fauvism.

The series "Mystical Heads" (1917–1937) and "Abstract Heads" (1918–1935) reduced the human visage to planar, hieratic forms, using a limited palette and rhythmic repetition. He applied tempera and oil in thin, luminous glazes over a white ground.

After Der Blaue Reiter disbanded in 1914, Jawlensky exhibited with Die Blaue Vier (The Blue Four), alongside Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and Lyonel Feininger. His work influenced later abstract painters engaged with the synthesis of figuration and geometric reduction. Though classified as "entartete Kunst" (degenerate art) by the Nazi regime in 1937, his paintings entered collections such as the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.