The fact that Alexej von Jawlensky temporarily emulated his colleague Henri Matisse can hardly hide at least some of his early pictures. In the “Still Life with a Yellow Ceiling” created in 1910, for example, the Russian painter is clearly based on the style of the French. This is evidenced by details that also characterize the pictures of Matisse, who matured into an avant-garde artist a little earlier than Jawlensky: a perspective unfolded to form a surface, an artfully untidy arrangement of rolling fruits and slipped tablecloth, a brightly colored pattern reminiscent of oriental ornaments, as well as the clear black contours of all these compositional elements.
The still life belongs to the collection of the Wiesbaden Museum and consequently to the exhibition “Everything” there, with which the house flips through the acquisition history of all of its large Jawlensky possessions.
You can also see some works from the artist's environment.
Including the “Still Life with a Small Matisse Sculpture” by Oskar Moll from 1917.
Mountain landscape from Marg Moll included
The work of the native Silesian, which was also unmistakably influenced by Matisse, was until recently in the possession of the Wiesbaden collector Roman Rubin, who has now given it to the museum.
The early Christmas present also included a “mountain landscape” created by the artist's wife, Marg Moll, around 1950.
Both fit perfectly into Wiesbaden's collection and exhibition policy.
Not only does the “still life with a small Matisse sculpture” illustrate the great influence the French had on his contemporaries. It also forms the basis for a show planned for 2023. It ties in with the “Lebensmenschen” exhibition from the spring of last year, in which Jawlensky and his companion Marianne von Werefkin faced each other, and extends this idea to artist couples in general. The two works of the Molls will then also be shown.
A gift that makes the context of a museum collection as clear as the two newcomers is a stroke of luck and usually the result of a long bond between the giver and the recipient.
“We depend on that,” notes director Andreas Henning.
Because contrary to what the coalition agreement of the current state government has promised, his house still does not have a purchase budget.
At the same time, gifts have a tradition and are part of the DNA of the Wiesbaden Museum, whose existence is rooted in civic engagement.
After all, part of Johann Isaak Gerning's art and natural objects collection, which forms the basis of the holdings, was a donation.
Friendship with Frank Brabant
The most notable foundations are of course very recent. First and foremost the Art Nouveau collection by Ferdinand Wolfgang Nees, which came to the house in 2019 and founded its own department. The long friendship with Frank Brabant also pays off: the local collector has made a will that the museum will one day inherit half of its Expressionist art treasures and has given him Jawlensky's monumental painting “Helene in Spanish Costume” in advance. Marian Stein-Steinfeld, meanwhile, recently made the correspondence between Jawlensky and her grandmother, the patron Hanna Bekker vom Rath, a gift. Jan Baechle finally supplemented the corresponding focus with an impressive collection of 19th century paintings.
The donors usually know “which works are of interest to us,” says Henning.
You know each other well.
But that doesn't mean that the museum's people can promise everything.
A permanent presentation, for example, would be out of the question for reasons of space.
Heirs of artist estates are also at the wrong address in the museum.
Because the bundles, which are often regionally located, have to be looked after, and “we can't do that,” says Henning.
Postcard from Oskar Schlemmer
The Jawlensky archive, which Angelica Jawlensky Bianconi intends to transfer to the museum on the occasion of the current exhibition until 2025 and which is then to be set up in the museum - with an additional position - is, on the other hand, of inestimable value for research. A prime example of a valuable addition to the collection is the postcard with a motif that Oskar Schlemmer painted in 1941 after he had learned of Jawlensky's death: a dry cross over a sea of loose, broad brushstrokes, the intense colors of which are immediately reminiscent of Jawlensky's Palette makes you think, Schlemmer sent a friend to the Russian war front. According to Henning, the Jawlensky granddaughter's foundation would also have "been out of reach for us on the art market".Now, however, the miniature in the Museum Wiesbaden closes the life span of the artist.
The exhibition “Slawomir Elsner. Precision and Blurring ”can be seen until March 6, 2022,“ Everything! 100 Years of Jawlensky in Wiesbaden ”runs until March 27, 2022. The museum is open on Boxing Day from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.