Alexej Georgewitsch von Jawlensky was a Russian expressionist painter active in Germany. He was a key member of the New Munich Artist's Association (Neue Künstlervereinigung München) and the Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider). After a few years of military training, he became interested in painting, visiting the Moscow World Exposition c. 1880. Thanks to his good social connections, he managed to get himself posted to St. Petersburg and, from 1889 to 1896, studied at the art academy there, while also discharging his military duties. There he met Marianne von Werefkin, an artist and former student of Repin. He requested to be her protégé, and Werefkin decided to put her work on hold to promote his work and provide him with a comfortable lifestyle. Eventually she would get back to her painting. Jawlensky and Werefkin moved to Munich in 1894, where he studied in the private school of Anton Ažbe. In 1905 Jawlensky visited Ferdinand Hodler, and two years later he began his long friendship with Jan Verkade and met Paul Sérusier. Together, Verkade and Sérusier transmitted to Jawlensky both practical and theoretical elements of the work of the Nabis, and Synthetist principles of art. In 1922, Jawlensky married Werefkin's former maid Hélène Nesnakomoff, the mother of his only son, Andreas, who was born before their marriage.