Ameisenhaufen

Ameisenhaufen

Artist: Marianne von Werefkin (Russian, 1860–1938)

Style: German Expressionism

Date: c. 1916

Medium: Oil and tempera on paper laid down on board

Collection: Private collection

Description

Marianne von Werefkin was one of the most remarkable women working at the centre of Munich’s avant-garde circle during a period of rapid change and intense creativity at the turn of the twentieth century. Born in the Russian town of Tula near Moscow in 1860, she studied art under the private tutelage of Ilya Repin. It was there that she met Alexej von Jawlensky in 1891, with whom her relationship as mentor, patron and companion would last until 1921. The couple moved to Munich in 1896, at which point Werefkin gave up painting for almost a decade in order to devote herself entirely to the development and promotion of Jawlensky’s talents. During this time, however, she played a decisive role in the Munich art scene as hostess of a salon on Giselastrasse, where she commanded the room of artists, writers, dancers, progressive thinkers and Russian émigrés who were attracted there.

After almost twelve months touring France with Jawlensky, Werefkin returned to painting in early 1907. The couple formed a close friendship with Wassily Kandinsky and Gabriele Münter, which led to the founding of a secessionist group called the Neue Künstlervereinigung München (New Association of Artists in Munich, NKVM) in 1909. The group’s spiritualist principles were founded on a desire to synthesise the impressions projected on the artist by the external world and the personal experience of this collected by the artist. The NVKM paved the way for the Blaue Reiter group, which would be created in 1911 in rejection of the former group by renegade members. Marianne von Werefkin, adhering artistically to Symbolism whilst belonging to the inner circle of the developing group, was the only artist close to the Blaue Reiter circle whose work focused on social issues and the world of human labour and factory work, and her figurative work became her defining point.