Head

Artist Alexej von Jawlensky Russian, 1864–1941, active in Germany and Switzerland

Datecirca 1924

MediumOil on paperboard, mounted on canvas

Dimensions17 1/4 x 13 15/16 in. (43.8 x 35.4 cm)
Frame: 23 3/4 x 19 7/8 x 1 1/2 in. (60.3 x 50.5 x 3.8 cm)

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LineBequest of Mrs. Consuelo Sides

Object numberG.66.29.1

On View

Not on view

Label Text
Jawlensky, like his colleague Lyonel Feininger, found his artistic voice after immigrating to Germany. His earliest works glow with colors as intense as those of the fauves and share the aggressive technique of the German expressionists. Experiments with combinations of color, line, and form led Jawlensky to simplify these elements as a way of intensifying the content of his work. As Jawlensky described this evolution, "I understood that I must not paint that which I saw, not even that which I felt, but that which . . . was in my soul."

Jawlensky came to focus exclusively on the human head, reducing the basic geometry of the facial anatomy to a semiabstract formula. The spare but highly expressive face-its coloring as muted as its features are unspecified-concentrates all the force and pathos of Jawlensky's mystical values.
ProvenanceMrs. Consuelo Sides, New York; bequeathed to NCMA, 1966.Published References"Accessions of American and Canadian Museums," Art Quarterly 30 (Summer 1967), listed 161, illus. (b-w).

"Acquisitions," North Carolina Museum of Art Bulletin 7, no. 2 and 3 (1967/68?), listed 65, illus. (b-w) 60, fig. 32.

Edgar Peters Bowron, ed., Introduction to the Collections (Chapel Hill: published for the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, by The University of North Carolina Press, 1983), illus. (b-w) 267.

Introduction to the Collections, rev. ed. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1992), illus. (b-w) 261.

Maria Jawlensky, Lucia Pieroni-Jawlensky, and Angelica Jawlensky, Alexej von Jawlensky: Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, Volume 2, 1914-1933 (London: Sotheby's Publications, 1992), no. 1222 (as Abstract Head), illus. (b-w).

Julia Freifeld, "As I See It." North Carolina Museum of Art Preview and Calendar of Events (July/Aug 2001), 29, illus. (b-w).
Exhibition HistoryRichmond, VA, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, "Masterpieces from the North Carolina Museum of Art," Mar. 11-Apr. 13, 1975.

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