One of the most original and powerful Russian twentieth century artists, Alexej von Jawlensky worked for most of his life in Germany with early spells in France. After he had come to terms with the impact of Gauguin, Cezanne and Matisse, his work went through Fauve and expressionist periods in the development of a highly personal style, In 1909 he helped found the Neue Kunstlervereinigung in Munich, and along with Kandinsky was an outstanding member of that group. He became one of the great twentieth century explorers of the soul, for whom art was 'nostalgia for God.' This, the first of three volumes that will catalog nearly 2,000 oil paintings, covers the period up to his enforced departure from wartime Germany, during which he developed his brilliant use of colour. Pioneering introductory and end matter to the volume includes an authoritative biographical outline and a full list of one-man and group exhibitions, with Jawlensky's illuninating brief memoir of 1937. The artist's inventory of his work, carried on after his death by his son Andreas and his wife Maria, was continued after Andreas's death by his wife and daughters Lucia and Angelica, now keepers of their grandfather's archive in Locarno.

This second volume of the catalogue of the oil paintings of Alexej von Jawlensky covers the artist's superbly exciting middle period, from his enforced departure from Munich in 1914 up to 1933, when the Nazis banned his work from exhibition. All 833 works discussed are illustrated - 340 of them in color. During World War I Jawlensky's painting underwent a radical change. In the series ""Variations on an Abstract Theme"" he stylized the view from his windows - a small garden, path, lake, mountains beyond - to a culmination of total intensity. He increasingly regarded the human face as the sign of an inner vision. The latter series ""mystical heads,"" ""Faces of the Saviour,"" and ""Abstract Heads"" pulsate with color and seem to express the combined forces of architecture, music, sculpture and dance. Introductory matter includes an essay by Angelica Jawlensky on the artist's serial painting, and unpublished correspondance with Kandinsky, Schmidt-Rottluff and Emmy Scheyer.

Catalogue raisonné.

The fourth and last volume of the work of Alexej von Jawlensky covers the watercolours and drawings executed throughout his career. Over 1,200 works are included and illustrated, showing a variety of techniques - watercolour, pencil, chalk, charcoal, pastel, pen and ink, brush and ink, wax crayon and gouache. Also included are some 83 new additions to the oil oeuvre. Jawlensky's watercolours and drawings are considerably less well known than his oil paintings. They nevertheless amount to a substantial oeuvre of high artistic quality, treating broadly the same subjects as the oil paintings and belonging to most of the major series. Whether independant works, or variants of them, or preliminary studies for oil paintings, the watercolours vividly enhance appreciation of the artist's oeuvre. This volume is arranged in two parts. The first conatins watercolours and drawings dating from all stages of Jawlensky's working life, 1890 to 1938. The sedonc part is devoted to the contents of ten known sketchbooks, executed in the middle books, between around 1900 and 1920. The First World War, with the enforced departure from Munich and years spent in Switzerland, which during this period was a haven for many emigre artists and an international crossroads for experiemental new movements and ideas, amrked a turning point in Jawlensky's art. The watercolours of around 1917, for example, show Jawlensky reaching towards the new forms and approaches to colour that emerge in the series ""Saviour's Faces"" and ""Abstract Heads."" Some watercolours, especially works in the series ""Variations on a Landscape Theme,"" more boldly approach complete abstraction than any of the oil paintings. Besides new biographical information and extensive exhibition and bibliographical data, the volume also includes two essays. In one, Michael Bockemuhl, Professor of Art History and Aestheitcs at the University of Witten, covers the dialogue between watercolour and oil media in Jawlensky's work. The other essay is by Angelica Jawlensky Bianconi on Jawlensky's stylistic evolution, in particular the genesis of each of his major series. These themes are taken up throughout the book in individual catalogue entries.