Wassily Kandinsky: A Life in Letters 1889-1944

“Even if they don’t speak of art very skilfully, what artists say is generally alive.”

Wassily Kandinsky was not only the inventor of abstract painting, but also its gifted propagandist. His letters reveal an artist who thought deeply and communicated and organised incessantly. He was also a straightforward and warm-hearted individual. It seems surprising that a significant part of his correspondence has remained unpublished.

Wassily Kandinsky was not only the inventor of abstract painting, but also its gifted propagandist. His Kandinsky’s letters reflect his life and thoughts as well as his art. Through the astute, sometimes witty and polemical letters to his colleagues and friends, gallerists and authors, we gain an insight not only into Kandinsky’s way of thinking and his everyday life, but also into the dramatic times in which he lived: two revolutions, two world wars, the Nazi regime, four emigrations and epoch-making art events of which he was one of the main protagonists. In this publication, the dawn of the avant-garde to new dimensions of art becomes an event.