Alexej von Jawlensky
Abstrakter Kopf: Winter
1927
Oil on cardboard mounted on wood
42.2 × 32.8 cm / 16 5/8 × 12 15/16 in
Signed and dated »XII. 27« also on the verso again signed, dated and titled »Winter«
Listed in the Cahier Noir (artist’s hand list) on p. 16
Catalogue Raisonné by Jawlensky/Pieroni-Jawlensky 1992 no. 1279
The artist’s estate; Dalzell Hatfield Galleries, Los Angeles (directly from the estate); Serge Sabarsky Gallery, New York (1969); Private Collection (1969-2022)
- Galerie Ludorff, Neuerwerbungen Herbst 2022, Düsseldorf 2022
- "Moderne Deutsche Malerei aus Privatbesitz", Kunsthalle Basel 1933
- Galerie Ferdinand Möller, "Die Blauen Vier", Berlin 1929
- Galerie Ludorff, "Neuerwerbungen Herbst 2022", Düsseldorf 2022, S. 70
- Maria Jawlensky/Lucia Pieroni-Jawlensky/Angelica Jawlensky, "Alexej von Jawlensky catalogue raisonné of the oil paintings vol. 2 1914-1933", München 1992, Nr. 1279
- Clemens Weiler, "Alexej Jawlensky", Köln 1959, Nr. 322, Abb. S. 250
From 1917 onwards, Jawlensky's oeuvre underwent a transformation from a naturalistic to an increasingly abstract representation of what he saw. This development is symbolically illustrated by the portraits and depictions of heads - the ‘Mystical Heads’, the ‘Saviour's Faces’, the ‘Abstract Heads’ and finally the ‘Meditations’.
I understood that the artist must say with his art through forms and colours what is divine in him. That is why the work of art is a visible God, and art is a longing for God. 1)
This work from 1927 belongs to the Abstract Heads series. It shows the shape of a face, which is described by a U-shaped line and fills almost the entire picture surface. The different parts of the face, such as the eyes and nose, are reduced to simple, rectangular shapes. These divide the face into different coloured areas. The implied mouth takes the form of a horizontally aligned semicircle. On the left and right, the head is framed by two falling strands of hair. The recurring, identical basic motif is often compared to Russian icon painting. At first glance, these leave little room for variation, but in his works it is above all the colours, the gentle shading of forms and the delicate balancing of the forms on each other that allow room for variation and the expression of inner feelings. It is not so much the concentration of optical phenomena that drives him, but rather the effect reflected in them.
1) Jawlensky, quoted from Clemens Weiler, ‘Alexej Jawlensky. Köpfe, Gesichter, Meditationen', Hanau 1970, no p.
