Portrait of a Girl

Alexej Georgewitsch von Jawlensky was a Russian expressionist painter active in Germany. He was a key member of the New Munich Artists Association (Neue Künstlervereinigung München), Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) group and later the Die Blaue Vier (The Blue Four).

During his service as an army officer Alexei Jawlensky studied at the St. Petersburg Art Academy, where he met great Russian artists, Ilya Repin and Marianne Werefkin. In 1896, Jawlensky travelled with Werefkin to Munich, where he met Wassily Kandinsky. The two artists established the Neue Künstlervereinigung München (New Artists Association, Munich) the year the Portrait of a Girl was made, and the association was later to produce the Blaue Reiter. 

The members pursued a new formal approach and sought to combine external impressions with inner sensations. Initially influenced by Henri Matisse, whom he met in Paris, and Fauvism, Jawlensky sought this new form of expression in colour and its mood—reflected impressively in his portraits of that year. In Portrait of a Girl, the basic colour blue, synonymous with longing, is graduated in rich facets. The blouse changes into shades of violet, the face is shaded with blue and green, in contrast to the red skirt.