Head of a Woman

One of Jawlensky’s earliest mature works, this portrait of his assistant Hélène Nesnakomoff (whom he later married in 1921) marks the beginning of the artist’s lifelong experimentation with meditative variations on the theme of the human face or head. The glowing colors show the influence of the Fauves, while the heavy, dark outlines recall the work of Paul Gauguin. Jawlensky spent the summer of 1911 on the Baltic in Prerow (Pomerania). In 1937, he recalled this period, “This summer meant for me a great development in my art. There I painted… large figural works… in very strong, glowing colors 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 very strongly colored 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.”