Alexej Jawlensky - Editions New York Tuesday, June 8, 2010 | Phillips

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  • Literature

    Detlev Rosenbach 22

  • Catalogue Essay


    1922 Biographical Outline:
    For the next eleven years [Jawlensky] painted predominantly Abstract heads. Six lithographs printed as a portfolio by the Nassauischer Kunstverein. Success of the exhibitions organized by Emmy Scheyer. Maria Jawlensky, Lucia Pieroni-Jawlensky and Angelica Jawlensky Bianconi Catalogue Raisonné Volume Four, The Watercolours and Drawings 1890-1938, p.30
    Jawlensky’s economy of line and style looks to Matisse’s nudes of the same time (see lot 193), and both knew each other as of 1905. I painted these ‘Variations’ for some years, and then I found it necessary to find form for the face, because 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. I understand 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 have sat in my studio and painted, and have not needed Nature as a prompter. I have needed only to immerse myself in myself, pray, and prepare my soul to a state of religious awareness. I have painted many, many faces. Their size too is only 32 x 42 (cm). They are technically very perfect and radiate great spirituality. Alexej von Jawlensky in letter to Pater Willibrord Verkade, June 12, 1939.
    Jawlensky has transposed the human head as such into a language of abstract life, raised it out of its earthly existence to manifest the soul and the spirit. Emmy Scheyer, 1919, Volume Two 1914-1933 catalogue raisonné of the oil paintings, p. 17.

110

Köpfe portfolio: Kopf V

1922

Lithograph with hand-coloring in watercolor, on laid paper, with margins,

I. 12 x 8 in. (30.5 x 20.3 cm);
S. 19 3/8 x 15 3/8 in. (49.2 x 39.1 cm)

signed in pencil, from the edition of 20 with hand-coloring, published by the Nassauischer Kunstverein, Neues Museum, Wiesbaden, the sheet slightly toned, minor creasing and rippling throughout, pale mat staining, otherwise in good condition, framed.

Estimate
$8,000 - 12,000 

Sold for $8,125

Editions

8 June 2010
New York