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Lot n° 22

Alexej von Jawlensky

Estimate :
50 000 - 70 000 EUR

Alexej von Jawlensky Large Meditation. December 1936. no. 9 1936 Oil on linen-textured paper, mounted on card and mounted on cardboard. 24.5 x 20 cm. Framed. Monogrammed in red lower left and dated 'A.J. 36' on the right. - Inscribed 'A. Jawlensky XII 1936 N. 9' by Lisa Kümmel in brown ink verso. - In good condition, with individual unobtrusive small retouches in the narrow black margin. M. Jawlensky/Pieroni-Jawlensky/A. Jawlensky Vol. III 2108 Provenance On the list of paintings sent to Galka Scheyer in the USA, no. 5 (dated "10 May 1939"); Galerie Klewan, Munich, acquired there in 1978; Günter P. Landmann Collection, Munich The monogrammed painting "Grosse Meditation", dated 1936, belongs to Jawlensky's last important group of works, the "Meditations". With them, he concluded a development in his oeuvre that had begun with the large, intensely colored heads and which, via the "Mystical" and "Abstract Heads" of the 1920s, underwent a progressive reduction in terms of color and composition. Jawlensky himself regarded them as the culmination and, in their formal concentration, as the quintessence of his work: "The last period of my work has very small formats," he wrote, "but the pictures are even deeper and more spiritual, spoken only with color. Since I felt that I would no longer be able to paint in the future due to my illness, I work like a man possessed on these small meditations". (quoted from exhib. cat. Munich/Baden-Baden 1983, p. 292). The "Large Meditation" is a monochrome brown, from which other colors shine out mysteriously, as it were. A framework of brown vertical and horizontal lines mark the nose, the closed eyes, the mouth and the hairline. He filled in the spaces in between with parallel brushstrokes to which he added a dark green or red. As with only a few examples of this series of works, the proximity to the tradition of Russian Orthodox icon painting is particularly clear here. The present meditation was one of the paintings that Jawlensky's long-time agent and friend Galka Scheyer (1889-1945) sent to the United States. In the preceding years, she had organized numerous exhibitions for the artist and secured his livelihood by selling his works. From 1924, she also made the work of the "Blue Four" Kandinsky, Klee, Feininger and Jawlensky known in the USA.

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