Lot Essay
Grüne Haube comes from a series of important pre-war heads which Jawlensky painted in 1911, the year which he recalled in his memoirs "meant a great step forward in my art. I painted my finest landscapes...as well as figure paintings in powerful glowing colours and not at all naturalistic or objective. I used a great deal of red, blue, orange, cadmium yellow and chromium-oxide green. My forms were strongly coloured in Prussian blue and came with tremendous power from an inner ecstasy...It was a turning point in my art. It was in these years, up to 1914 just before the war, that I painted my most powerful works, referred to as 'pre-war works'" (A. v. Jawlensky, 'Memoir dictated to Lisa Kümmel, 1937', in M. Jawlensky, L. Pieroni-Jawlensky and A. Jawlensky, op. cit., p. 31.
Aside from the Fauves, with whom he exhibited at the Salon d'Automne in 1905, it is possible to trace a number of other influences on Jawlensky's style from outside the Brücke circle. "From Cézanne he absorbed the schematic rendering of forms, and from Van Gogh the use of high key colour laid on a rhythmic pattern of thick brush strokes...Jawlensky's brilliant series of women's heads painted between the years 1910 and 1913 - his first great plateau of human achievement - cannot be easily placed as an integral part of this [German Expressionist] tradition...Jawlensky's heads are too sensuous and lyrical, they completely lack a sense of anguished morbidity which is fundamental to the style of Die Brücke" (S. Hopps & J. Coplans, Jawlensky and the Serial Image, exh. cat., California, 1976, pp. 8, 11).
The reverse of Grüne Haube bears the distinctive label and handwriting of Emmy (Galka) Scheyer (1889-1945) (illustrated). Galka came from a wealthy Brunswick family, and first saw works by Jawlensky at an exhibition in Lausanne in 1915. They made such an impression on her that she determined to meet the artist, which she did at Saint-Prex in 1916. Thereafter, she became Jawlensky's secretary, agent and dealer, and was responsible for arranging exhibitions of his work first in Germany and later in America.
Grüne Haube originally belonged to Helene Jawlensky, the artist's wife whom he married in 1922. Angelica Jawlensky has recently suggested that the sitter might even be Helene herself. Jawlensky first met the fourteen-year old Helene Neznakomova in 1895 and their only child, Andreas, was born on 18 January 1902.
Aside from the Fauves, with whom he exhibited at the Salon d'Automne in 1905, it is possible to trace a number of other influences on Jawlensky's style from outside the Brücke circle. "From Cézanne he absorbed the schematic rendering of forms, and from Van Gogh the use of high key colour laid on a rhythmic pattern of thick brush strokes...Jawlensky's brilliant series of women's heads painted between the years 1910 and 1913 - his first great plateau of human achievement - cannot be easily placed as an integral part of this [German Expressionist] tradition...Jawlensky's heads are too sensuous and lyrical, they completely lack a sense of anguished morbidity which is fundamental to the style of Die Brücke" (S. Hopps & J. Coplans, Jawlensky and the Serial Image, exh. cat., California, 1976, pp. 8, 11).
The reverse of Grüne Haube bears the distinctive label and handwriting of Emmy (Galka) Scheyer (1889-1945) (illustrated). Galka came from a wealthy Brunswick family, and first saw works by Jawlensky at an exhibition in Lausanne in 1915. They made such an impression on her that she determined to meet the artist, which she did at Saint-Prex in 1916. Thereafter, she became Jawlensky's secretary, agent and dealer, and was responsible for arranging exhibitions of his work first in Germany and later in America.
Grüne Haube originally belonged to Helene Jawlensky, the artist's wife whom he married in 1922. Angelica Jawlensky has recently suggested that the sitter might even be Helene herself. Jawlensky first met the fourteen-year old Helene Neznakomova in 1895 and their only child, Andreas, was born on 18 January 1902.