43 Facts About Wassily Kandinsky

Wassily Kandinsky enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics.

In 1896, Wassily Kandinsky settled in Munich, studying first at Anton Azbe's private school and then at the Academy of Fine Arts.

Wassily Kandinsky returned to Moscow in 1914, after the outbreak of World War I Following the Russian Revolution, Kandinsky "became an insider in the cultural administration of Anatoly Lunacharsky" and helped establish the Museum of the Culture of Painting.

Wassily Kandinsky then moved to France, where he lived for the rest of his life, becoming a French citizen in 1939 and producing some of his most prominent art.

Wassily Kandinsky died in Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1944, three days prior to his 78th birthday.

Wassily Kandinsky was born in Moscow, Russia and was the son of Lidia Ticheeva and Vasily Silvestrovich Wassily Kandinsky, a tea merchant.

Wassily Kandinsky learned from a variety of sources while in Moscow.

Wassily Kandinsky studied many fields while in school, including law and economics.

Wassily Kandinsky was the uncle of Russian-French philosopher Alexandre Kojeve.

Wassily Kandinsky called this devotion to inner beauty, fervor of spirit, and spiritual desire inner necessity; it was a central aspect of his art.

In 1896, at the age of 30, Wassily Kandinsky gave up a promising career teaching law and economics to enroll in the Munich Academy where his teachers would eventually include Franz von Stuck.

Wassily Kandinsky was not immediately granted admission, and began learning art on his own.

Wassily Kandinsky was particularly taken with the impressionistic style of Haystacks; this, to him, had a powerful sense of colour almost independent of the objects themselves.

Wassily Kandinsky was similarly influenced during this period by Richard Wagner's Lohengrin which, he felt, pushed the limits of music and melody beyond standard lyricism.

Wassily Kandinsky was spiritually influenced by Madame Blavatsky, the best-known exponent of theosophy.

Wassily Kandinsky's book Concerning the Spiritual in Art and Point and Line to Plane echoed this theosophical tenet.

Wassily Kandinsky accepted, and their relationship became more personal than professional.

From 1906 to 1908 Wassily Kandinsky spent a great deal of time travelling across Europe, until he settled in the small Bavarian town of Murnau.

Wassily Kandinsky helped found the Neue Kunstlervereinigung Munchen, becoming its president in 1909.

Wassily Kandinsky's writing in The Blue Rider Almanac and the treatise "On the Spiritual in Art" were both a defence and promotion of abstract art and an affirmation that all forms of art were equally capable of reaching a level of spirituality.

Wassily Kandinsky believed that colour could be used in a painting as something autonomous, apart from the visual description of an object or other form.

Interest in Wassily Kandinsky grew apace when Sadleir published an English translation of On the Spiritual in Art in 1914.

Wassily Kandinsky had received some notice earlier in Britain, however; in 1910, he participated in the Allied Artists' Exhibition at London's Royal Albert Hall.

From 1918 to 1921, Wassily Kandinsky was involved in the cultural politics of Russia and collaborated in art education and museum reform.

Wassily Kandinsky painted little during this period, but devoted his time to artistic teaching, with a program based on form and colour analysis; he helped organize the Institute of Artistic Culture in Moscow of which he was the first director.

In 1921, Wassily Kandinsky was invited to go to Germany to attend the Bauhaus of Weimar by its founder, architect Walter Gropius.

Wassily Kandinsky taught the basic design class for beginners and the course on advanced theory at the Bauhaus; he conducted painting classes and a workshop in which he augmented his colour theory with new elements of form psychology.

Wassily Kandinsky was one of Die Blaue Vier, formed in 1923 with Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger and Alexej von Jawlensky, which lectured and exhibited in the United States in 1924.

Wassily Kandinsky intended his forms to resonate with the observer's soul.

Wassily Kandinsky was aware of recent scientific developments and the advances of modern artists who had contributed to radically new ways of seeing and experiencing the world.

In 1871 the young Wassily Kandinsky learned to play the piano and cello.

In 1928 in the theater of Dessau, Wassily Kandinsky realized the stage production of "Pictures at an Exhibition".

Wassily Kandinsky suggested he simply repeat the word uberflut and focus on its sound rather than its meaning.

Wassily Kandinsky's art has a confluence of music and spirituality.

Wassily Kandinsky often used black in his paintings to heighten the impact of brightly coloured forms while his forms were often biomorphic approaches to bring surrealism in his art.

Wassily Kandinsky spent years creating abstract, sensorially rich paintings, working with form and colour, tirelessly observing his own paintings and those of other artists, noting their effects on his sense of colour.

Wassily Kandinsky accepted, and their relationship became more personal than professional.

From 1906 to 1908 Wassily Kandinsky travelled across Europe until he settled in the small Bavarian town of Murnau.

Wassily Kandinsky returned to Moscow in 1914 when the first World War broke out.

Wassily Kandinsky then moved to France with his wife, where he lived for the rest of his life, becoming a French citizen in 1939 and producing some of his most prominent art.

Wassily Kandinsky died in Neuilly-sur-Seine on 13 December 1944, three days prior to his 78th birthday.

Wassily Kandinsky's grandson was musicology professor and writer Aleksey Ivanovich Kandinsky, whose career was both focused on and centred in Russia.

In 2013 the Lewenstein family filed a claim for the restitution of Wassily Kandinsky's Painting with Houses held by the Stedelijk Museum.