Alexej von Jawlensky

Galerie Ferdinand Möller, Berlin (on commission from the artist in 1929)
Private Collection, Germany (acquired from the above on the 30th of December 1929; until circa 2003)
Galerie Thomas, Munich
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Executed in 1913, Helene is a bold Expressionist composition and a powerful example of the artist's rendering of the motif of the face which captured the artist throughout his career. As the artist declared: 'human faces are for me only suggestions to see something else in them - the life of colour, seized with a lover's passion' (quoted in Clemens Weiler, Alexej Jawlensky. Köpfe, Gesichter, Meditationen, Hanau, 1971, p. 12).

The model for the present work is Helene Neznakomova, a Russian girl who worked as a housemaid of Alexej von Jawlensky and Marianne von Werefkin when they were living in Munich and Murnau. Jawlensky eventually started an affair with Helene, with whom he had a son Andreas, born in 1902. Helene, Marianne von Werefkin and Jawlensky lived together in the same household until 1921 when Jawlensky officially separated from von Werefkin.

The present work marks a decisive phase in the artist's development. During the years preceding World War I, a shift is noticeable in his themes. Until then, landscapes, still lifes and portraits had played an equal role in his œuvre, but now the human face appears to take first place - and with it a theme that should dominate his work for the rest of his life. From 1911 to1913 expressive heads dominated Jawlensky's oeuvre.  Monumental, powerfully coloured and sensual 'Heads' created in his early period are a first climax in the artist's work. As Tayfun Belgin notes: 'In his portrayal of heads, Jawlensky was driven by an eternally returning unrest to transform everything emotionally and intellectually necessary of our everyday life onto the canvas' (translated from German, T. Belgin, 'Alexej von Jawlensky: Von der Farbekstase zur Malerei der Serie', in Alexej von Jawlensky Magische Bilder (exhibition catalogue), Kunsthalle Krems, Krems, 2003, p. 6).

Helene was painted at the height of this phase. Perceiving the present work from the conservative standpoint of portrait painting, Jawlensky has reached a high degree of abstraction. The simplification of the form in a representational formula of head and face and the powerfully balanced dissonance of partly complementary colours have taken on a life of their own. As visible in the present work, Jawlensky was moving towards a new structure of the picture plane, using strong outlines to simplify form and content, using vivid glowing colour palettes.

The present work reflects the many stylistic influences that shaped Jawlensky's art and contributed to the development of German Expressionist painting. Around the time he created this work, Jawlensky was living in Munich and worked closely with Kandinsky, who founded Der Blaue Reiter in 1911. Jawlensky's reliance upon colour as a means of visual expression derived from the examples of the Fauve painters working in France. Jawlensky exhibited with these artists, including Matisse and Van Dongen, at the Salon d'Automne of 1905 in Paris. He was inspired by their wild colouration and expressive brushwork, and between 1909 and 1911 the works of these artists had a profound impact on his painting. Like Matisse, who famously remarked: 'I used colour as means of expressing my emotion and not as a transcription of nature', Jawlensky believed that colour communicated the complex emotions of his subjects (quoted in Jacqueline & Maurice Guillard, Matisse: Rhythm and Line, New York, 1987, p. 24).

Volker Rattemeyer wrote about the influences of Fauve artists visible in Jawlensky's portraits executed around this time, including the present work: 'The manner in which the vivid colours and blue/black contours begin to focus on specific features - eyes, nose and mouth - seems to have been inspired by Van Dongen. In contrast to the overt sensuality of Van Dongen's female portraits, Jawlensky's are dominated by an introspective seriousness' (V. Rattemeyer, Alexej von Jawlensky (exhibition catalogue), Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam, 1944, p. 77). Indeed with her large, wide open eyes, the woman in the present work has an introvert, inquisitive character. Portrayed in semi-profile, she captures the viewer's attention with her dark but glowing eyes that appear to be the focal point of the composition.

A range of vivid colours is present in Helene in the bright palette used to depict the woman's face, jewellery and clothes executed in a combination of vibrant blue, yellow and red tones. In a composition dominated by broad, free brushstrokes the woman's strong bodily outlines stand out, emphasising the expressive quality of her elongated almond-shaped eyes and eyebrows. The present work is an impressive example of Jawlensky's series of women's faces executed during the Blaue Reiter period.