Gelb Rosa was painted during the latter years of Kandinsky's Bauhaus period. From 1926 he and Klee shared a house for Bauhaus tutors, and this close contact inspired reciprocal influences. In Gelb Rosa, not only the technique of sprayed watercolour but also the crisp, geometric forms relate to the work of Klee. It was at around this time that Kandinsky's abstract pictorial vocabulary grew simpler and more schematized, and he often employed a chequerboard pattern to display the subtlest chromatic effects and contrasts. The spray technique expanded the range of light and shadow, and enhanced the texture and density of the watercolour medium still further, here creating a wide array of glowing reds and yellows. Because Klee's abstract forms were free from any association with the 'real world', they were completely dependant upon the artist to give them their connotations of colour, warmth, recession, and motion; and this Kandinsky achieved through the careful orchestration of his palette.

"During the last years in Dessau, from 1929 to 1932, Kandinsky constantly gained in assurance and lightness of touch. A joy of living is perceptibly felt in his work ... Not only are his means very flexible, he transforms them endlessly ... The numerous studies, drawings and watercolours are invariably exact, and in structure and expression equivalent to the paintings ... What distinguished the paintings prior to 1933, is first of all the spirituality with which the mathematical and 'Constructivist' elements are treated, the unprecedented empathic response to forms derived from mathematical physics, and their adaption to the realm of pictorial invention" (W. Grohmann, Wassily Kandinsky, Life and Work, London, 1959, p. 210).