ABSTRAKTER KOPF: INNERES SCHAUEN-GRAU-BLAU-ROSA (ABSTRACT HEAD: INNER VISION-GREY-BLUE-PINK)

Alexei Jawlensky

Russian, active Germany, 1864 - 1941

ABSTRAKTER KOPF: INNERES SCHAUEN-GRAU-BLAU-ROSA (ABSTRACT HEAD: INNER VISION-GREY-BLUE-PINK), 1927

Oil on board

Des Moines Art Center Permanent Collections; Gift of Jacqueline and Myron Blank, 2003.271

Many artists of the early 20th-century experimented with abstracting the human face, using only basic lines and shapes.

Jawlensky dedicated a large series to this, which would become his best-known style of work. Like several of his contemporaries, he found inspiration not only in the folk art of his homeland (Russia), but also in masks from Africa and Southeast Asia.

Jawlensky intended his painting to be seen as both an abstract composition of colors and shapes as well as a mystical image of a decontextualized human face.