After several years of service in the Russian army, Alexei Jawlensky landed in Saint Petersburg and enrolled in the Academy of Art. Seven years of schooling there led him to search for a personal style beyond the stultifying rigidity of academia, so he moved to Munich. In the blossoming art scene of the German city, he befriended another Russian expatriate, Vassily Kandinsky. Alongside his countryman, Jawlensky experimented with line, color and form in ways that would inform the rest of his career. Jawlensky repeatedly executed portraits, at first enlivening the background, the costume and the sitter’s face with color, as in Feather Hat—Olga (the picture is thought to depict Olga von Hartmann, a friend of Marianne von Werefkin, Jawlensky’s companion). Around the time of this picture, Jawlensky visited with Henri Matisse and Emil Nolde, an experience that led him to strip his portraits of potentially distracting information and instead focus only on the face. This later approach can be seen in the portrait of Hélène Nesnakomov (b. 1881), mother to Jawlensky’s only son, Andreas. Here Jawlensky defines the sitter’s face—now occupying nearly the entire picture plane—with blotches of contrasting turquoise, orange, plum, brown and black.
Details
- Artist Name: Alexei Jawlensky (Russian, 1864-1941)
- Title: Feather Hat - Olga
- Date: c. 1912
- Medium: Oil on textured wove paper, mounted on canvas
- Dimensions: 21 x 19-1/2 in. (53.3 x 49.5 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Museum, The Blue Four Galka Scheyer Collection
- Accession Number: P.1953.080
- Copyright: © Norton Simon Museum
Object Information
Galka Scheyer, by the 1930s;
Pasadena Art Institute, Pasadena, 1953-1954;
Pasadena Art Museum, Pasadena,1954-1975;
Norton Simon Museum, 1975.
Works in Dialogue (a special series program)
- J. Paul Getty Museum, 2008-10-07 to 2009-05-18
Alexei Jawlensky: A Centennial Exhibition
- Pasadena Art Museum, 1964-04-14 to 1964-05-19
- Rose Art Museum, 1964-11-09 to 1964-12-13
- Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1965-01-04 to 1965-02-07
- University of California, Berkeley Art Museum, 1965-03-01 to 1965-03-31
- University of New Mexico, Art Museum, 1965-10-17 to 1965-11-23
- Isaac Delgado Museum of Art, 1965-12-07 to 1966-01-16
The Spirit of Modernism: Galka Scheyer in the New World
- Norton Simon Museum, 1994-11-17 to 1996-01-14
Feininger, Jawlensky, Kandinsky, Paul Klee. The Blue Four Galka E. Scheyer Collection
- Pasadena, Pasadena Art Museum, 1955-05-27 to 1955-08-30
The Blue Four-Galka Scheyer Collection From The Norton Simon Museum
- Henry Art Gallery, 1997-07-17 to 1997-10-05
Gaze: Portraiture After Ingres
- Norton Simon Museum, 2009-10-30 to 2010-04-05
Alexei Jawlensky (1864-1941)
- Norton Simon Museum, 2007-05-04 to 2007-11-05
Visions and Icons: the Art of Alexei Jawlensky
- Norton Simon Museum, 1990-01-18 to 1991-04-14
My Four Kings: Galka Scheyer and the Blue Four
- Norton Simon Museum, 2002-12-13 to 2003-04-14
- Schultze, Jürgen, Alexej Jawlensky, pl. 19 p. 67
- The Blue Four Galka Scheyer Collection, Norton Simon Museum of Art at Pasadena, 1976, no. 109 p. 45
- Jawlensky, 1990, p. 10
- Jawlensky, Maria; Lucia Pieroni-Jawlensky, and Angelica Jawlensky, Alexej von Jawlensky: Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, 1890-1914, 1991, no. 526
- Weiler, Clemens, Alexej von Jawlensky, 1995, no. 123
- Barnett, Vivian Endicott, The Blue Four Collection at the Norton Simon Museum, 2002, no. 115 pp. 93-94
Additional Artwork by Artist
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