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Artist or Maker: Alexej von Jawlensky (1864-1941)
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Provenance: The artist's studio.
Emmy Galka Scheyer, Hollywood, 1933; sale, Los Angeles, 1954, lot 4.
Felix Landau Gallery, Los Angeles.
J.B. Neumann Galleries, New York.
World House Galleries, New York.
Private collection, California.
Leonard Hutton Galleries, New York.
Private collection, USA; sale, Sotheby's, New York, 16 November 1989, lot 357.
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner.
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Exhibited: Los Angeles, Museum, The Blue Four, 1933, (probably) no. 77.
New York, Leonard Hutton Galleries, The Blue Four, 1984, no. 32 (illustrated in colour p. 42).
Wiesbaden Museum, May - August 1991, no. 130 (illustrated p. 221).
Madrid, Fundación Juan March, Alexej von Jawlensky, March - June 1992; this exhibition later travelled to Barcelona, Museo Picasso, June - August 1992.
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Literature: M. Brenson, 'Art: A View of the Blue Four and Expressionism' in New York Times, 20 April 1984 (illustrated p. C25).
M. Jawlensky, L. Pieroni-Jawlensky, A. Jawlensky, Alexej von Jawlensky, Catalogue raisonné of the oil paintings, vol. II, 1914-1933, London, p. 488-489, no. 1434 (illustrated in colour p. 499).
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Notes: PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE EUROPEAN COLLECTION
'I had come to understand that great art can only be painted with religious feeling. And that, I could only bring to the human face' (Jawlensky, letter to Pater Willibrord Verkade, Wiesbaden, 12 June 1938, quoted in Alexej von Jawlensky: Catalogue raisonné of the Oil Paintings: volume I, 1890-1914, ed. M. Jawlensky, L. Peroni-Jawlensky and A. Jawlensky, London, 1991, p. 34). So wrote Jawlensky only a handful of years after painting his sublime Abstrakter Kopf: Ostern. Jawlensky continued: 'I understood that the artist must express through his art, in forms and colours, the divine inside him. Therefore a work of art is God made visible, and art is a 'longing for God'. I have painted 'Faces' for many years. I sat in my studio and painted, and did not need Nature as a prompter. I only had to immerse myself in myself, pray, and prepare my soul to a state of religious awareness' (Jawlensky, quoted in op.cit, ed. Jawlensky et al., 1991, p. 34).
In his Abstrakter Kopf series, Jawlensky managed to harness his intense sense of spirituality while embracing his virtuoso colourism. Here, fields of colour comprise the face, with only a handful of geometrical lines and arcs as delineations. This is an intensely modern image, and the title is clearly accurate in its reference to 'Abstraction', for this painting has a purity that has more to do with Mondrian or Malevich than with religious painting.
Jawlensky's artistic career entered a distinct phase when he began his series paintings. From 1919 especially, when he commenced his Variations landscapes, Jawlensky found that the act of creating a work of art took on a mystical power of its own. Painting became a ritual for him. When he turned to depictions of the human face for inspiration, he opened a new path. Abstrakter Kopf: Ostern dates from the very apogee of the Abstrakter Kopf series, in which he had honed down the language of shape and colour to a simple, pure and absorbing extreme. Radiant with the luminosity of its own colours as well as the spirituality with which the artist has imbued it, we see in Abstrakter Kopf: Ostern the truth of Jawlensky's own statement that, 'My art is simply a meditation or prayer in colour' (Jawlensky, quoted in C. Weiler, Jawlensky: Heads, Faces, Meditations, London, 1971, p.64).
The innovation of Jawlensky's philosophy and techniques during this period attracted him a strong and extremely devoted following. Through the encouragement of Emmy 'Galka' Scheyer, Jawlensky and his friends Feininger, Klee and Kandinsky formed the 'Blue Four' group. Scheyer promoted their works in the United States especially, a fact that was to have great ramifications on the development of avant-garde painting there, exposing these trailblazing visionaries to the American artists and the American market alike. Abstrakter Kopf: Ostern significantly formed part of her collection, and probably featured in her 1933 exhibition of The Blue Four. It was later owned by Leonard Hutton, who did so much to promote great Expressionist painting and whose gallery has held several important exhibitions of Jawlensky's works.
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