The Church in Prerow - Alexej von Jawlensky
Archival giclée
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Description
A bold Expressionist study of a church in Prerow, featuring saturated red tones and expressive, heavy brushwork characteristic of Jawlensky's 1911 period.
Painted in 1911, The Church in Prerow captures a period of intense creative development for Alexej von Jawlensky. During this time, the artist spent summers in the Baltic coastal town of Prerow, where he engaged with the local architecture and natural surroundings through a lens of bold colour and simplified form. This work reflects the influence of his association with the Neue Künstlervereinigung München and his ongoing dialogue with the work of Henri Matisse and the Fauves.
The composition is dominated by the striking, saturated red of the church wall, which acts as a flat plane against which the other elements are arranged. Jawlensky employs heavy, expressive brushwork to define the structure of the building and the surrounding foliage. The dark, almost black, outlines of the window and the tree trunk provide a strong contrast to the warm tones of the masonry. The tree in the foreground serves to frame the view, creating a sense of immediate presence while simultaneously flattening the pictorial space.
Jawlensky avoids realistic detail in favour of emotional resonance. The colours are applied with a deliberate, non-naturalistic intent, prioritising the subjective experience of the scene over objective representation. The dark, rhythmic strokes of the fence and the foliage suggest a restless energy, typical of his work from this period. By reducing the church to its essential geometric components, Jawlensky achieves a balance between the physical reality of the subject and his own internal response to the environment. This piece is a clear example of his transition towards a more abstract, spiritualised approach to painting, where the subject serves as a vehicle for colour and form rather than a literal depiction of a place.
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Each print is produced to order using 12-colour giclée printing on FSC-certified archival paper. Designed in Britain and printed at your nearest production hub to reduce waste and speed up delivery.
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Specific Features
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- Museum-grade giclée printing for rich, fade-resistant colour
- Archival matte fine-art paper, FSC-certified
- Multiple sizes and framing options available
- Frames in black, natural wood, dark wood or white
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- Dust gently with a soft, dry cloth
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Materials & Sizing
Museum-grade giclée on FSC-certified archival matte paper, with framed and canvas options.
- Paper sizes: A4, A3, A2, A1, A0 and B2 (50×70 cm)
- Canvas: XS (20×30 cm) to Large (60×90 cm)
- Frames: black, natural wood, dark wood or white
The Church in Prerow - Alexej von Jawlensky
Artist Biography
Alexej Von Jawlensky
Jawlensky was born in Torzhok, Russia, in 1864, the fifth child of a military family. He trained as an officer in the Imperial Guard before abandoning that career in 1889 to study painting under Ilya Repin in St Petersburg. His patron and companion Marianne von Werefkin, herself a successful painter, financed their move to Munich in 1896. There he met Kandinsky, beginning a friendship that would shape both their careers.
Matisse, Van Gogh and Gauguin all pushed Jawlensky toward bolder colour, but his real catalyst was a trip to Provence in 1905 that convinced him colour could carry spiritual weight without representational accuracy. Back in Munich he produced intense, mask-like portraits: the Mystical Heads (1917 to 1919) and Saviour's Faces (1918 to 1920) drew directly on Russian Orthodox icon traditions from his childhood. He studied theosophy, yoga and Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophy, seeking a synthesis of Eastern and Western spiritual practice through paint.
He co-founded the New Munich Artists' Association with Kandinsky and later joined Der Blaue Reiter. In 1924, Emmy Scheyer (whom Jawlensky nicknamed "Galka", Russian for jackdaw) abandoned her own painting career to promote his work in America, forming Die Blaue Vier with Jawlensky, Kandinsky, Klee and Feininger. The First World War had already forced Jawlensky from Germany to Switzerland; he returned to Wiesbaden in 1921 and stayed until his death in 1941, increasingly isolated as the Nazis classified his work as degenerate.
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