Kandinsky Watercolors

Description

New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. 1980. — 84 p.Vasily Kandinsky is a central figure in the development of twentieth century art. More than any other painter, with the possible exception of Piet Mondrian, he is identified with the transition from representational to abstract art. Kandinsky, who was born in Russia in 1866, did not begin his career as a painter until the first decade of our own century. He made his most original and important contributions to modern painting and aesthetic ideas in Munich between 1908 and 1914. After his return to Russia upon the outbreak of World War I, the artist worked for the revolutionary government,organizing cultural institutions based upon modern ideas. When the new Soviet government became hostile to avant-garde art, Kandinsky left his homeland once more for Germany and accepted a teaching position at the Weimar Bauhaus. He was forced to leave Germany again in 1933, when the Nazis closed the Bauhaus. This time the artist found refuge in Paris, where he spent the last eleven fruitful years of a creative and influential life.(uncolored and color illustrated).