Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky ( Russian1866 – 1944) was a Russian painter and art theorist. Kandinsky is generally credited as the pioneer of abstract art.[1] Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa (today Ukraine), where he graduated at Grekov Odessa Art school. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics. Successful in his profession—he was offered a professorship (chair of Roman Law) at the University of Dorpat (today Tartu, Estonia)—Kandinsky began painting studies (life-drawing, sketching and anatomy) at the age of 30.
In 1896, Kandinsky settled in Munich, studying first at Anton Ažbe‘s private school and then at the Academy of Fine Arts. He returned to Moscow in 1914, after the outbreak of World War I. Following the Russian Revolution, Kandinsky “became an insider in the cultural administration of Anatoly Lunacharsky“[2] and helped establish the Museum of the Culture of Painting.[3] However, by then “his spiritual outlook… was foreign to the argumentative materialism of Soviet society”,[4] and opportunities beckoned in Germany, to which he returned in 1920. There he taught at the Bauhaus school of art and architecture from 1922 until the Nazis closed it in 1933. He then moved to France, where he lived for the rest of his life, becoming a French citizen in 1939 and producing some of his most prominent art. He died in Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1944.
“Reiterweg’ / ‘Riding Path”, Wassily Kandinsky Original woodcut signed with the artist’s monogram in the block, 1938
From the second edition printed under Kandinsky’s supervision and issued in Paris for XXe Siecle in 1938. The edition was 1200 – although many of these impressions were destroyed during the war. (This woodcut was originally created for ‘Klänge’ (Sounds) Kandinsky’s now seminal ‘musical album’ of woodcuts and poetry published in 1913).
Original prints published in San Lazzaro’s groundbreaking art journal XXe Siècle. XXe Siècle (Twentieth Century) was the brainchild of the Italian-born art historian and publisher Gualtieri di San Lazzaro. He published the first issue in 1938 and a further four before the outbreak of the Second World War. He re-started the project as XXe Siècle Nouvelle Serie in 1951 and continued it right up until his death in 1974. Along with Verve and Derriére le Miroir this publication helped shape the definition of modern art for two generations of art-lovers in Europe. It democratized the collecting of original prints by many of the giants of the European Avant-Garde.
“Motif aus Improvisation 25: The Garden of Love’, Wassily Kandinsky
Woodcut, 1911/1938, signed with the artist’s monogram in the block. Printed on pale cream wove paper.
$1100.00
From the second edition printed under Kandinsky’s supervision and issued in Paris for XXe Siecle in 1938. The edition was 1200 – although many of these impressions were destroyed during the war. (This woodcut was originally created for ‘Klänge’ (Sounds) Kandinsky’s now seminal ‘musical album’ of woodcuts and poetry published in 1913).
“Der Drache”, “Katze”, Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944)
Original woodcuts on laid paper, each monogrammed in the block. “Epreuve” in pencil lower right. ( Roethel 18 (1903) 69 (1907). Artists proofs before publication in Les Tendencies Nouvelles July 1904. $785.00
Orientalisches’ / ‘In the Oriental Style’, Wassily Kandinsky
Original woodcut printed on pale cream wove paper, 1938.
$1100.00
From the second edition printed under Kandinsky’s supervision and issued in Paris for XXe Siecle in 1938. The edition was 1200 – although many of these impressions were destroyed during the war. (This woodcut was originally created for ‘Klänge’ (Sounds) Kandinsky’s now seminal ‘musical album’ of woodcuts and poetry published in 1913). Original prints published in San Lazzaro’s groundbreaking art journal XXe Siècle. XXe Siècle (Twentieth Century) was the brainchild of the Italian-born art historian and publisher Gualtieri di San Lazzaro. He published the first issue in 1938 and a further four before the outbreak of the Second World War. He re-started the project as XXe Siècle Nouvelle Serie in 1951 and continued it right up until his death in 1974. Along with Verve and Derriére le Miroir this publication helped shape the definition of modern art for two generations of art-lovers in Europe. It democratized the collecting of original prints by many of the giants of the European Avant-Garde.