Apr 21, 2005 - Sale 2039

Sale 2039 - Lot 1

Price Realized: $ 29,900
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 30,000 - $ 40,000
WASSILY KANDINSKY [2ND SALON ISDEBSKY.] 1910.
31x23 inches. Joh, Roth, Munich.
Condition A-: minor discoloration and restoration in margins. Paper.
Russian born Wasily Kandinsky studied law and economics before being inspired an exhibition of French Impressionist art to become an artist. At the age of 30 he went to Munich to study art, and there he was involved in founding three seminal artistic groups The Phalanx (1901), Neue Kunstlerverinigung (1909) and the Blaue Reiter (1911). In 1901 Kandinsky designed the poster announcing the first exhibition of the Phalanx group, and in 1909 he designed the poster announcing the first exhibition of the Neue Kunstlerverinigung. One year later the group had a second show, which was a travelling exhibition. This explains why the poster, printed in Munich, is in Russian. This was the last poster Kandinsky designed, as the following year he broke from the Neue Kunstler Vereinigung, and along with Franz Marc, began the Blaue Reiter. It was the dawn of Kandinsky's abstract work, and this poster, heralding the arrival of a new art form, with its lightness of form, free-handed drawing and freely applied colors is a distinct bridge between his two periods. The image was reused on a poster in 1951 by the Galerie Maeght in Paris, to advertise an exhibition called "'jusq'au l' abstraction." Roethel V9.