Kandinsky
By: Vivian Endicott Barnett ... [et al.].
Contributors: Barnett, Vivian Endicott; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus München; Centre Georges Pompidou
Publisher: Guggenheim Museum; Available through D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers
Published: 2009
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 319
ISBN-13: 9780892073917; 9780892073900
Subjects: Abstracte schilderkunst; Expositions; Abstract Painting; Peinture abstraite; Exhibitions
Description: This volume presents abstract Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944). It reproduces scores of recently rediscovered paintings that had languished for decades in Soviet museums and in private collections. The author provides new details on Kandinsky's life and art, discussing his little-known experimental stage plays which strove for a synthesis of all the arts, and his friendships with Paul Klee, Arnold Schonberg and composer Thomas von Hartmann, who introduced the artist to Sufism, the mystical offshoot of Islam. Most chapters include excerpts from Kandinsky's newspaper articles, essays and unpublished letters, creating the impression of a tolerant nonconformist who saw art as inseparably linked with the higher laws of the cosmos. The reproductions provide an exciting glimpse of Kandinsky's leap into abstraction after his early absorption of folk and religious art, fauvism and neo-impressionism.
Notes: Published on the occasion of the exhibition "Kandinsky," held at Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau, Munich, October 25, 2008-March 8, 2009, Centre Pompidou, Paris, April 8-August 10, 2009, and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, September 18, 2009-January 13, 2010.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 314-318).
Table of contents: title: Vasily Kandinsky : abstract, absolute, concrete / Annegret Hoberg; title: The artist reinvents himself : changes, crises, turning points / Vivian Endicott Barnett; title: The theater of pictures : Kandinsky's abstraction of abstraction / Matthias Haldemann; title: Kandinsky and the Cahiers d'art, 1927-44 / Christian Derouet; title: Kandinsky and "America in general" / Tracey Bashkoff; title: Kandinsky's materials and techniques : a preliminary study of five paintings / Gillian McMillan and Vanessa Kowalski.