Gouache on paper, framed. Featuring an abstract head portrait. Signed A. Jawlensky on the lower left corner. 49 x 42 cm (19.3 x 16.5 inches), frame: 65 x 58 cm (25.6 x 22.8 inches). Alexej von Jawlensky was born in Torzhok, a town in Tver Governorate, Russia, as the fifth child of Georgi von Jawlensky and his wife Alexandra. He moved to Munich in 1894, where he studied in the private school of Anton Azbe. In 1905 Jawlensky visited Ferdinand Hodler, and two years later he began his long friendship with Jan Verkade and met Paul Serusier. Together, Verkade and Serusier transmitted to Jawlensky both practical and theoretical elements of the work of the Nabis, and Synthetist principles of art. In Munich he met Wassily Kandinsky and various other Russian artists, and he contributed to the formation of the Neue Kunstlervereinigung Munchen. His work in this period was lush and richly coloured, but later moved towards abstraction and a simplified, formulaic style. Between 1908 and 1910 Jawlensky and Werefkin spent summers in the Bavarian Alps with Kandinsky and his companion, the painter Gabriele Munter. Here, through painting landscapes of their mountainous surroundings, they experimented with one another’s techniques and discussed the theoretical bases of their art. Following a trip to the Baltic coast, and renewed contact with Henri Matisse in 1911 and Emil Nolde in 1912, Jawlensky turned increasingly to the expressive use of colour and form alone in his portraits. PROVENANCE: Southern Ontario estate

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