Alexej Georgewitsch von Jawlensky (; 13 March 1864 – 15 March 1941), surname also spelt as Yavlensky, was a Russian expressionist painter active in Germany. He was a key member of the New Munich Artist's Association (Neue Künstlervereinigung München), Der Blaue Reiter ("The Blue Rider") group, and later Die Blaue Vier ("The Blue Four").

Career

Alexej von Jawlensky was born on 13 March 1864, in Torzhok, a town in Tver Governorate, Russia, as the fifth child of Georgi von Jawlensky and his wife Alexandra (née Medwedewa). At the age of ten he moved with his family to Moscow. After a few years of military training, Only because of his good social connections, he managed to get himself posted to Saint Petersburg and, from 1889 to 1896, studied at the art academy there, while also discharging his military duties.

thumb|left|Painted between 1905 and 1906 Küste bei Caranteque

In Munich he met Wassily Kandinsky and various other Russian artists, and he contributed to the formation of the Neue Künstlervereinigung München. His work in this period was lush and richly coloured, but later moved towards abstraction and a simplified, formulaic style. Between 1908 and 1910 Jawlensky and Werefkin spent summers in the Bavarian Alps with Kandinsky and his companion, the painter Gabriele Münter. Here, through painting landscapes of their mountainous surroundings, they experimented with one another's techniques and discussed the theoretical bases of their art. Following a trip to the Baltic coast, and renewed contact with Henri Matisse in 1911 and Emil Nolde in 1912, Jawlensky turned increasingly to the expressive use of colour and form alone in his portraits.

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  • Official Website
  • Available Works & Biography Galerie Ludorff, Düsseldorf, Germany
  • Biography of Alexej Georgewitsch von Jawlensky
  • Information with links from the-artists.org
  • Alexej von Jawlensky 1992 exhibition at the Fundación Juan March, Madrid, traveled to Museo Picasso, Barcelona
  • Alexei Jawlensky 2017 exhibition at the Neue Galerie, New York City