"Kopf in Bronzefarben – Bildnis Sacharoff" (1913) – The perfect moment
The expressionist Alexej von Jawlensky, who must have held the “Head in Bronze Colors – Portrait Sacharoff” in high esteem since he presented the painting at a seminal exhibition of the Munich Secession in 1914 shortly after its creation, was famous for his “loud” aggressive use of color. This painting is a prime example of the artist's delicate handling of softer tones, which may be much more challenging to achieve because he knew very well that not everything with color is also colorful. It should be noted that Jawlensky deliberately muted his bold palette around 1913 to create paintings with a deeper, somber tonality that would reverberate in the viewer as if in an echo chamber, thus unfolding a lasting impression. The same is true of the present bronze head, which fills much of the surface against a blue-gray background sprinkled with lively touches of green and claret, giving the dark head a pleasantly significant quality. The fact that it does not convey power or even menace is entirely due to the restrained colors, which flash out of the darkness only on his right cheek with an almost glistening quality, and, of course, to the fact that the thinker in the present work is depicted in the classic melancholic pose with his head resting on his hand.
The question is how today's experts recognized the sitter for “Head in Bronze Colors” as one of the very few close friends of the artist, the dancer Alexander Sacharoff? To give two examples, an anonymous “Portrait of a Boy” was renamed “Nikita” after Marianne von Werefkin's nephew was identified. Or the “Portrait of a Man”, acquired by the Museum Wiesbaden from the famous art dealer Hanna Bekker vom Rath in 1954, was renamed “Portrait of Sacharoff” by Jawlensky's first biographer Clemens Weiler (presumably in consultation with the artist's son Andreas Jawlensky). Since the “Head in Bronze Colors” is undoubtedly the same size as its pendant in Wiesbaden and was also painted the same year, it is more than justified to call the painting “Portrait of Sacharoff” as well, especially since the dancer was a frequent guest at the home of Jawlensky and Werefkin at Giselastraße 23 in Munich/Schwabing. Even if it remains unclear which of the two paintings was created first, they must have been painted around the same time, judging by their similarity and the fact that they are both of excellent quality, seemingly executed at the exact perfect moment. All this is further proof that Jawlensky was already thinking in terms of making versions of a motif before the First World War, which later developed into his excellent series of “Abstract Heads” (from 1918) or the “Meditations” (from 1934). Although both of these pictures were still conceived as independent masterpieces, the idea of a complementary partner picture was already there. While the angular, antiquish-looking Sacharoff in Wiesbaden, depicted in profile, seems to be pondering some distant intellectual concept, the bronze-colored Sacharoff, frontally depicted and pleasantly fitting into the square, seems, for his narrow yellow eyes, like the epitome of a generally contemplative person.

Dr. Roman Zieglgänsberger, member of the academic advisory board of the Alexej von Jawlensky Archive, Muralto/Switzerland, curator of Modern Art, Museum Wiesbaden

It was 1913 when Jawlensky painted his captivating expressionist “Head in Bronze Colors – Portrait Sacharoff”, inspired by the fascinating personality of the avant-garde star dancer Alexander Sacharoff. The year before the outbreak of World War I, when Expressionism reached its absolute zenith, not only in Munich but also in the cultural metropolises of Berlin and Vienna. The year in which Franz Marc, who would lose his life at just 36 on his last day of service in World War I at Verdun, painted his famous and still-missing painting “The Tower of Blue Horses,” and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, who had moved from Dresden to the art mecca of Berlin, began working on his celebrated “Berlin Street Scenes.” In Vienna, Egon Schiele, who had completed the decisive transition from Art Nouveau to Expressionism, created his most compelling self-portraits on paper this year.
1913 is remembered as the defining moment of Modernism, not only in art but also in literature and music. It was a fascinating intellectual phenomenon just before the outbreak of the First World War, to which the art historian and journalist Florian Illies dedicated an entire book, “1913. The Summer of the Century”. What all the artistic currents of 1913 have in common is a yearning for entirely new forms of artistic expression, for an intense interpenetration of the emotional experience and the artistic form, an endeavor that finds immediate expression in Jawlensky's monumental heads. “Head in Bronze Colors – Portrait Sacharoff” is, on account of its extraordinary expressionistic strength and emotional depth, also one of the strongest compositions that Jawlensky created during this exceptional year.

Jawlensky and Sacharoff – friendship, fascination and inspiration
Jawlensky and the modern avant-garde dancer Alexander Sacharoff were to become close friends in 1905. In his memoirs, Jawlensky wrote: For several years, we were always together, and he was with us almost every day. The years of our friendship were exciting, for Sacharoff is an intelligent, witty, sensitive, and talented person. [..] I always watched him dance. He loved and understood my art deeply. (Quoted from: Lebenserinnerungen, in: A. v. J. Reisen. Freunde. Wandlungen, Museum am Ostwall, Dortmund 1998, p. 113)
In 1910, Sacharoff caused a sensation with his first expressionist dance performance in the concert hall at the Royal Odeon in Munich. He wore self-designed costumes, and the music was composed by the Russian Thomas von Hartmann, who would later become an author of the “Blauer Reiter” almanac. The Munich “Neueste Nachrichten” reported on the first performance on June 4, 1910: “The venue was well attended, especially by ladies; the Russian and Schwabing colony seemed to be in full attendance. The stage was covered with black cloth and divided by black drapes. An excellent string quartet and a harpist played behind the drapery, and Alexander Sacharoff, the new dance artist, came on stage.” (Quoted from: Bernd Fäthke, Jawlensky und seine Weggefährten im neuen Licht, Munich 2004, p. 132)
While the unsuspecting audience and press were shocked by the modern dance performances and the dancers' androgynous appeal, the Munich avant-garde was fascinated with Sacharoff's progressive dance art, which is not characterized by a fixed choreography but by the informal and direct expression of emotions. This endeavor was also central to Jawlensky's painting in those years. The salon of Jawlensky's partner Marianne von Werefkin on Giselastraße in Schwabing, which was the meeting place of the avant-garde at the time, also offered rich intellectual inspiration for Jawlensky's painting: “The Munich colony of Russian aristocrats and artists met at her salon. [..] They talked about nothing but art. I felt as though that was all I lived for,” recalled the young expressionist dancer Clotilde von Derp, who would later become Alexander Sacharoff's wife (quoted from: Frank M. Peter, Rainer Stamm, Die Sacharoffs. Zwei Tänzer aus dem Umkreis des Blauen Reiter, Bremen 2002, p. 161). In the present “Head in Bronze Colors – Portrait Sacharoff,” Jawlensky's deep admiration and friendly bond with Sacharoff is not the only aspect that finds immediate expression; his enthusiasm for the new, the exotic and the changing self-dramatization, as characteristic of Sacharoff's dance performances of those years, is also addressed. At the height of European Modernism, Jawlensky's fascination with Sacharoff and modern dance is convincingly merged with his expressive painting full of form and color. The enormous artistic quality of this piece lies in the fascinating balance between figuration and abstraction, between elements of portraiture and a free stylization of form and color. “Head in Bronze Colors – Portrait Sacharoff” is not a portrait in a traditional sense; it is much more the direct expression of Jawlensky's spiritual and emotional sensation as a protagonist of European Modernism in the significant year 1913. [MvL/JS]