Marianne von Werefkin (born Marianna Vladimirovna Veryovkina; Russian: Мариа́нна Влади́мировна Верёвкина, IPA: [mərʲɪˈanːə vlɐˈdʲimʲɪrəvnə vʲɪˈrʲɵfkʲɪnə]; 10 September [O.S. 29 August] 1860 – 6 February 1938)^{[lower-alpha 1]} was a Russian artist, whose work is celebrated as a central part of German Expressionism.

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Quick Facts Born, Died ...

Marianne von Werefkin
Марианна Верёвкина
Self-portrait, c. 1910
Born	Marianna Vladimirovna Veryovkina (1860-09-10)10 September 1860 Tula, Russian Empire
Died	6 February 1938(1938-02-06) (aged 77) Ascona, Switzerland
Known for	painting
Movement	Expressionism

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In 1896, after the death of Werefkin's father, which would provide Werefkin with a noble Tsarist pension of 7,000 rubles per annum, she moved to Munich with her 11-year old lady's maid Helene Nesnakomoff [de] and Jawlensky. Werefkin's annual pension at that time corresponded to around twenty-two thousand German mark. Werefkin's rather young 'lady's maid', Nesnakomoff, had come to the Werefkin's household at age 9, after the death of the child's stepfather who was a local police officer, leaving the mother, who drank heavily, with three children as a beggar. Werefkin's father allowed Helene to come into the household. Her sister, Marie, was placed in a girls' asylum, and her brother stayed with his mother and was a thief […] who could not be changed. Since the mother was unreliable, Werefkin's administrator advised that the mother cede all her child care rights to Werefkin, which she did. Despite Nesnakomoff's tragic circumstance, in return for the warmth and sustenance, she had to earn her keep as an apprentice to Werefkin's [then] lady's maid in Tula.^{[citation needed]}

In Munich, Werefkin rented a comfortable double apartment on the third floor of Giselastrasse 23 in the Schwabing district, which she furnished partly with Empire and Biedermeier style furniture, which she contrasted with folk art furniture made in the workshops of the artist Yelena Polenova (1850-1898) in the artists' colony of Abramtsevo. Werefkin initially entrusted Jawlensky's further education to the Slovenian Anton Ažbe, while interrupting her own painting for exactly ten years in favour of his education. Like many women in art, she subordinated her artistic ambitions to the interests of her lover.^{[citation needed]}

Werefkin knew that Jawlensky was a womanizer: "Love is a dangerous thing, especially in the hands of Jawlensky."^{[citation needed]} Werefkin refused to marry, not least because of the generous pension from the Tsar, which she would have lost if she were a married woman. But Werefkin was determined to support Jawlensky as an artist in every way. In Werefkin's place, Jawlensky was to achieve and realize everything artistically that a 'weak woman' was in any case denied.^{[citation needed]}

“Three years passed in tireless nurturing of his mind and heart. Everything, everything he received from me, I pretended to take - everything I put into him I pretended to receive as a gift... so that he should not be jealous as an artist, I hid my art from him" (Werefkin, quoted from Fäthke 1980:17). Jawlensky's gratitude in return was abusing Werefkin's young lady's maid, with whom Jawlensky was already having a relationship, despite her young age, she modelled for Jawlensky and was madly infatuated with him.^{[citation needed]}

In 1897, Werefkin founded the Brotherhood of St. Luke (Bruderschaft von Sankt Lukas) in her "pink salon", whose members saw themselves in the tradition of the Guild of Saint Luke and which ultimately formed the nucleus of the New Artists' Association Munich (N.K.V.M) and The Blue Rider.^[2]

In 1897 Werefkin was in Venice with Ažbe, Jawlensky, Dmitry Kardovsky and Igor Grabar, initially to visit a Repin exhibition. They then studied the painting of old masters in various museums in northern Italy.^{[citation needed]}

In 1902 Werefkin's lady's maid Nesnakomoff, then 17 years old, gave birth to a child from Jawlensky, named Andreas Nesnakomoff (died 1984 - named Andreas Jawlensky [de] after his parents' marriage, later in life he would also become a known artist), at the time of the birth both Nesnakomoff and Jawlensky had returned for more than one year to Russia. In November 1902 Werefkin began writing her Lettres à un Inconnu (Letters to an Unknown) as a kind of diary, which she finished in 1906. A year later she went to Normandy with the Russian painter Alexander von Salzmann [de], while Jawlensky stayed in Munich. Jawlensky's painting Die Werefkin im Profil [de] (The Werefkin in profile) was created around 1905.^{[citation needed]}

In 1906 Werefkin travelled to France with Jawlensky, Nesnakomoff and son Andreas. First, they went to Brittany. From there Werefkin went via Paris and Arles to Sausset-les-Pins near Marseille, where her painter friend Pierre Girieud (1876–1948) lived. There, on the Mediterranean, Werefkin resumed her artistic activity.^{[citation needed]}

In 1907, Werefkin created her first expressionist paintings. Stylistically, Werefkin followed the theories of Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin's surface painting, Louis Anquetin's tone-on-tone painting, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's caricature and bold painting, and the ideas of Les Nabis. In the circle of friends in Munich, Werefkin was given the nickname "The Frenchwoman". In terms of iconology and motifs, Werefkin often drew on the works of Edvard Munch, and she brought the aforementioned artists into the picture before her colleagues, such as Wassily Kandinsky and Gabriele Münter, who took the first steps towards Expressionism. At that time, the artists Jan Verkade, Hugo Troendle, Hermann Huber and Curt Herrmann frequented Werefkin's salon.^{[citation needed]}

In the spring of 1908, Gauguin's Polish friend, Władysław Ślewiński, visited Werefkin. He convinced Jawlensky of surface painting. In the summer, the two artist couples Werefkin/Jawlensky and Münter/Kandinsky met in Murnau am Staffelsee in Upper Bavaria to paint together. In the winter of the same year, Werefkin, Jawlensky, Adolf Erbslöh and Oscar Wittenstein [de] came up with the idea of founding the N.K.V.M., of which Kandinsky was appointed its first chairman in 1909. The dancer Alexander Sacharoff became a member of the N.K.V.M. With Werefkin and Jawlensky he prepared his big performance at the Odeon in Munich.

In 1909 the Swiss painter Cuno Amiet, who at the time belonged to the Brücke (Bridge) artists' group, was a guest in Werefkin's salon. Amiet would later become one of Werefkin's best Swiss friends alongside Paul Klee and his wife Lily. On 1 December 1909 was the opening of the first exhibition of the N.K.V.M. with 16 artists. Werefkin exhibited six paintings, including Schuhplattler, her commitment to Bavarian folk art. In 1909 the painting Zwillinge (Werefkin) [de] (Twins) was created.

Shortly thereafter, Werefkin went to Russian Lithuania to her brother Peter (1861-1946), who was governor in Kaunas. Many drawings and quite a few paintings were made there that winter.

At the end of September 1910, Franz Marc made contact with the artists of the N.K.V.M. We learn from him that it was primarily Werefkin and Jawlensky who opened his eyes to a new art form.

From the beginning of May 1911, Pierre Girieud (1876–1948) lived with Werefkin and Jawlensky on Giselastrasse 23 when he and Marc showed his paintings in an exhibition at the Modern Gallery Heinrich Thannhauser. In the summer, Werefkin travelled with Jawlensky to Prerow on the Baltic Sea. At the end of the year, they went to Paris, where they met Henri Matisse personally.

In December 1911, Kandinsky left the N.K.V.M., together with Münter and Marc, to present the first exhibition of the editors of Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) in the winter of 1911/1912. In 1912, Werefkin and Jewlensky also left the N.K.V.M., which not until 1920 was officially removed from the Munich Register of Associations. Werefkin also exhibited with the members of the N.K.V.M. and the Blue Rider together with the artists of the Bridge from 18 November 1911 to 31 January 31, 1912 in the New Secession in Berlin. Werefkin exhibited there her painting Schlittschuhläufer (Ice Skaters).^{[citation needed]}

In 1913, Werefkin and Jawlensky participated in the exhibition of the editors of Der Blaue Reiter in the Berlin gallery Der Sturm (The Storm) by Herwarth Walden. In the same year, Werefkin intended the final separation from Jawlensky and travelled to Vilnius in Lithuania, where her brother Peter had meanwhile become governor. At the end of July 1914, Werefkin returned to Germany from Lithuania. She arrived in Munich on 26 July.^{[citation needed]}

When World War I broke out on 1 August 1914, Werefkin and Jawlensky had to leave Germany within 24 hours and fled to Switzerland with the service staff Helene Nesnakomoff with son Andreas, and Helene's sister Maria Nesnakomoff, who had earlier joined the household service. Werefkin handed over the keys and custodian of her apartment to Paul Klee and his wife Lily before fleeing to Switzerland. At first, they lived in Saint-Prex on Lake Geneva. As a result of the war, Werefkin's pension was cut in half. In 1916 there was a solo exhibition in Zürich, where the couple moved in September/October 1917.^{[citation needed]}

The artist is the namesake of the "Marianne-Werefkin-Preis [de]", which has been awarded by the Verein der Berliner Künstlerinnen (Association of Berlin Artists) to contemporary female artists every two years.

• Selfportrait in sailor blouse, 1893, oil on canvas
• In the Theater I, 1906, tempera and gouache on paper
• Fall, School (Herbst, Schule), c. 1907, tempera on cardboard
• The Dancer Alexander Sakharoff, 1909, tempera
• Helene (Helene Nesnakomoff, with fashionable Japanese Yoko Hyogo hairstyle), ca. 1909, gouache, quill and ink on wove paper; bequest of Werefkin, Nicholas Daragan private collection
• The Black Women (Schwarze Frauen), 1910, gouache on cardboard
• Ice Skaters (I pattinatori), 1911, tempera-painting on paper
• Storm Winds (Sturmwind), 1915–17, oil on canvas
• Police sentinel in Vilnius, 1917, tempera on canvas, Museo Comunale d'Arte Moderna, Ascona
• Fantastic Night, 1917, oil and tempera on cardboard
• The Family (La Familia), 1922, tempera on cardboard
• The Monk (Der Mönch), 1932, tempera on cardboard

• List of Russian artists