Wassily Kandinsky

(Moskau 1866 - 1944 Neuilly-sur-Seine)

In 1871–1886, Kandinsky’s family lives in Odessa, where, beginning in 1874, he is educated in the foundations of music. From 1886 until 1892, he studies law and economics at the University of Moscow. He leaves Russia in 1896, moving to Munich to study painting. In 1897–98, he attends classes at Anton Ažbe’s private art school, where he meets Alexej von Jawlensky, then, in 1900, at the Academy of Fine Arts, where Franz von Stuck is his teacher. From 1904 until 1908, he travels extensively with Gabriele Münter. During the summers of 1908–1910, Kandinsky, Münter, Jawlensky, and Werefkin are in Murnau to paint landscapes. In 1909, he is a cofounder of the “Munich New Artists’ Association.” Kandinsky’s earliest abstract watercolor dates from 1910. In 1911, he meets Franz Marc, then August Macke and Paul Klee. He and Marc start making plans for the almanac Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), which comes out in 1912, as does Kandinsky’s programmatic treatise Über das Geistige in der Kunst (On the Spiritual in Art). From 1914 until 1921, he is back in Russia, then, in 1922, at the Bauhaus in Weimar, with which he moves to Dessau in 1925. In 1924, he, Lyonel Feininger, Jawlensky, and Klee establish the group “The Blue Four.” In 1933, he relocates to Neuilly-sur-Seine.