Wassily Kandinsky (1886-1944)

A collection of sixteen autograph letters, prose and theoretical texts dating from 1910 to 1915 and the woodcut for the cover of the book Über das Geistige in der Kunst (Roethel 82)

Details
Wassily Kandinsky (1886-1944)
A collection of sixteen autograph letters, prose and theoretical texts dating from 1910 to 1915 and the woodcut for the cover of the book Über das Geistige in der Kunst (Roethel 82)
Two theoretical texts, one signed; eight prose texts; one sheet with the planned contents of the Blaue Reiter Almanach; three letters to R. Piper, all signed; one sheet discussing the concept of Klänge; and one sheet with the program of the first Blaue Reiter exhibition
pen and ink on paper
13 x 8¼ in. (33 x 21 cm.) and smaller
Written 1910 - 1915
17 (17)
Provenance
Reinhard Piper, Munich, to whom sent between 1910 and 1915, and thence by descent to the present owner.

Lot Essay

This collection of writings by Wassily Kandinsky offers unique insight not only into his major role in publishing the Blaue Reiter Almanach with Franz Marc and Reinhard Piper in 1912 and his ideas behind his book Klänge, but also into his talents as a prose writer and poet.

From an art-historical point of view it is the planned contents of the Blaue Reiter Almanach, the forword to the second edition and the maxim of the Blaue Reiter artists which are of greatest importance not only for the development of modern art in Germany but of Modernism in Europe at the dawn of the twentieth century.

"Wir suchen in dieser kleinen Ausstellung nicht eine präzise und spezielle Form zu propagandieren sondern wir bezwecken in der Verschiedenheit der vertretenen Formen zu zeigen, wie der innere Wunsch der Künstler sich mannigfaltig gestaltet" Kandinsky writes in one of the texts about the first Blaue Reiter Exhibition.

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