Marianne von Werefkin

(Tula bei Moskau 1860 - 1938 Ascona)

Descended from a Russian aristocratic family, Werefkin takes private lessons with Ilya Repin in Saint Petersburg from 1886 until 1896. It is in Repin’s studio that, in 1891, she meets Alexej von Jawlensky, and in 1896, the two move to Munich. She stops painting until 1906. The “Neue Künstlervereinigung München” (“Munich New Artists’ Association”) is born in her salon in 1909. In 1912, she participates in the exhibition Der Blaue Reiter in Munich and the “Sonderbund” exhibition in Cologne. With Jawlensky and Helene Nesnakomoff, his future wife and the mother of his son Andreas, she leaves Germany for Switzerland in 1914, taking lodgings in Saint-Prex on Lake Geneva. After a brief stay in Zurich in 1917, she settles in Ascona in 1918, where she first meets Karl Im Obersteg, though it is Karl’s son Jürg who will buy two of her works for the collection. After the separation from Jawlensky in 1921, Werefkin spends her later years in Ascona.