Born in Moscow in 1866,
Kandinsky spent his early childhood in Odessa. His parents played the piano and
the zither and Kandinsky himself learned the piano and cello at an early age.
The influence of music in his paintings cannot be overstated, down to the names
of his paintings "Improvisations", "Impressions", and "Compositions."
In 1886, he enrolled at the University of Moscow, chose to study law and
economics, and after passing his examinations, lectured at the Moscow Faculty of
Law. He enjoyed success not only as a teacher but also wrote extensively on
spirituality, a subject that remained of great interest and ultimately exerted
substantial influence in his work. In 1895 Kandinsky attended a French
Impressionist exhibition where he saw Monet's "Haystacks at Giverny." He stated,
" ...it was from the catalog I learned this was a haystack. I was upset I had
not recognized it. I also thought the painter had no right to paint in such an
imprecise fashion. Dimly I was aware too that the object did not appear in the
picture... "
Soon thereafter, at the age of thirty, Kandinsky left Moscow and went to Munich
to study life-drawing, sketching and anatomy, regarded then as basic for an
artistic education.
Ironically, Kandinsky's work moved in a direction that was of much greater
abstraction than that which was pioneered by the Impressionists. It was not long
before his talent surpassed the constraints of art school and he began exploring
his own ideas of painting - " ...I applied streaks and blobs of colors onto the
canvas with a palette knife and I made them sing with all the intensity I
could... " Now considered to be the founder of abstract art, his work was
exhibited throughout Europe from 1903 onwards, and often caused controversy
among the public, the art critics, and his contemporaries.
An active participant in several of the most influential and controversial art
movements of the 20th century, among them the Blue Rider which he founded along
with Franz Marc and the Bauhaus which also attracted Klee, Geiniger, and
Schonberg, Kandinsky continued to further express and define his form of art,
both on canvas and in his theoretical writings. His reputation became firmly
established in the United States through numerous exhbitions and his work was
introduced to Solomon Guggenheim, who became one of his most enthusiastic
supporters.
In 1933, Kandinsky left Germany and settled near Paris, in Neuilly. The
paintings from these later years were again the subject of controversy. Though
out of favor with many of the patriarchs of Paris's artistic community, younger
artists admired Kandinsky. His studio was visited regularly by Miro, Arp,
Magnelli and Sophie Tauber.
Kandinsky continued painting almost until his death in June, 1944. His
unrelenting quest for new forms which carried him to the very extremes of
geometric abstraction have provided us with an unparalleled collection of
abstract art.
