WASSILY KANDINSKY (1866-1944) [ABRIKOSOV CHOCOLATE.] 1901. 35 1/2x18 inches, 90x45 1/2 cm. Condition B+: minor losses along sharp vertical and horizontal folds; repaired tears in image. Japan. Russian born Wassily Kandinsky studied law and economics before being inspired by an exhibition of French Impressionist art to become an artist. At the age of 30 he went to Munich to study art, and became 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 that same year designed this poster for a Moscow chocolate company.
Kandinsky designed his first poster for Abrikosov in 1897. Through the marriage of a distant cousin he had related to the Abrikosov family, and designed several projects for them over the years. The company had become purveyors of Chocolate to the Russian Royal Family in 1899. After the Russian Revolution, in 1922, the company was nationalized and renamed Babaev, under which name it is still producing chocolate to this day. Kandinsky's 1897 poster for the company depicted a rather rudimentary pastoral scene with a large block of Cyrillic text in the middle. The poster is signed, "Kandinsky / Munchen," and in the bottom margin, in Roman letters, is the printer's name "Dr. Wolf und Sohn, Munchen."
Four years later, Kandinsky designed this poster, on which the graphics are more mature and the design substantially more advanced. This image, too, was printed in Munich, by Dr. Wolf, but this time the information appears in the bottom margin in Cyrillic.
The banner hanging from the herald's trumpet reads "Knight's Chocolate." And at the bottom it reads, "Suppliers to the Royal Palace of His Majesty / Company Abrikosov & Sons."
Much like his poster for Phalanx, Kandinsky here is exploring the use of flat colors and thick black outlining. It is one of the very few overtly commercial projects he undertook, and the poster is both an exceptional graphic illustration and an extraordinary rarity.
No other copy of this poster has been recorded. Not in Roethel.
![WASSILY KANDINSKY (1866-1944). [ABRIKOSOV CHOCOLATE.] 1901.. 35x18 inches, 90x45 cm..](https://catalogue.swanngalleries.com/full//190\604190.jpg)
