This is the first major American museum show to focus on the career of Vasily Kandinsky (1866-1944) over a crucial period—from the Blaue Reiter to the pure abstraction and total environments of his Bauhaus years. Born in Moscow, Kandinsky took up the study of art in 1896 after moving to Munich at age 30. In 1901, he was a founding member of the artists group Phalanx and an instrumental figure of the Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider), established in 1911. Kandinsky is widely credited as painting the first purely abstract works, and credited this breakthrough to his exposure to the avant-garde and atonal music of Arnold Schönberg, who became a close friend and colleague. Some of Kandinskys paintings are even named after music, i.e. "Compositions" and "Improvisations." Vasily Kandinsky: From Blaue Reiter to the Bauhaus, 1910-1925, features over eighty works by Kandinsky, including his early Expressionistic works and examples of the iconic modernist masterworks created while a teacher at the Bauhaus. A highlight of the exhibition is a recreation of his murals for the Juryfreie Kunstschau (Jury-Free Art Show), held in Berlin in 1922. Four paintings commissioned by the American Edwin Campbell, on loan from the Museum of Modern Art, are also on display. Work by Kandinskys leading contemporaries, including Albert Bloch, Marcel Breuer, Paul Klee, August Macke, Franz Marc, Gabriele Münter, László Moholy-Nagy, and Marianne von Werefkin, are shown to provide context.
This application features audio interviews with the exhibition’s curator, Jill Lloyd, and commentary from the director of the Neue Galerie New York, Renée Price.
Vasily Kandinsky: From Blaue Reiter to the Bauhaus, 1910-1925
is on view at:
Neue Galerie New York
1048 Fifth Avenue at 86th Street, New York, NY 10028
October 3, 2013 – February 10, 2014
This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and Humanities.
The audio tour for Vasily Kandinsky: From Blaue Reiter to the Bauhaus, 1910-1925, is supported by a generous grant from the International Art Law Group of Herrick, Feinstein LLP.