Jan 29, 2019 - Sale 2497

Sale 2497 - Lot 151

Price Realized: $ 31,200
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 30,000 - $ 40,000
KANDINSKY, WASSILY. Klänge. 56 woodcuts, comprising 12 in color and 44 in black and white, by Kandinsky, on Van Gelder laid paper. Folio, 279x279 mm; 11x11 inches, original gilt-lettered cloth spine over rose paper-covered boards with gilt-tooled vignettes, professional color restoration to tips, spine ends, and along edges. A fine copy. Printed by F. Bruckmann. Munich: R. Piper [1913]

Additional Details

first edition. number 216 of 300 copies signed by kandinsky, his masterpiece of expressionism, and one of the earliest artist's books to contain nonrepresentational art. Kandinsky had long associated music and writing, and in a letter to Gabriele Munter from 1904 he wrote that a work of art must "klingen" i.e. sound, or, resonate. He began work on the woodcuts for this project as early as 1907 and several studies for the prints are in the Gabriele Münter Stiftung, Münich. The prints show the breadth of his style from folk art and Jugendstil to his nonobjective designs, which have been so important in 20th century art. Hans Arp remarked that the sonorous quality of Kandinsky's poetry in Klänge was likewise influential in modern literature and was recited by the Dadaists in the Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich--The Artist and the Book 138; Roethel: 72-74, 85, 95-140, 142-146; Jentsch 9; From Manet to Hockney 31; Lang 164 and S. 48 ff.; Grohmann S. 413. - Vom Jugendstil zum Bauhaus 85; Rifkind Coll. II, 1368.1; Rosenwald 69.