WASSILY KANDINSKY | Entwurf für eine Affiche einer franzosischen Brauerei (Sketch for a Poster for a French Brewery)

Sale: Christie’s, London, July 6, 1971, lot 38
Galere Gunzenhauser, Munich
Davlyn Gallery, New York (acquired by 1982)
Private Collection, New York (and sold: Sotheby’s, New York, November 12, 1988, lot 124)
Private Collection, United States (and sold: Sotheby’s, London, June 30, 1992, lot 24)
Acquired at the above sale

Munich, Galerie Gunzenhauser, Die Künstler des Blauen Reiters und ihre Freunde, 1975, no. 31
New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Kandinsky in Munich: 1982-1914, 1982, no. 178, illustrated in the catalogue
New York, Tony Shafrazi Gallery, A Passion for Art, 1992, n.n.
Jerusalem, The Israel Museum, Wassily Kandinsky: The Colour of Abstraction, 1999, illustrated in color in the catalogue (titled Woman Pouring Beer)
London, Royal Academy of Arts, Kandinsky Watercolours and other Works on Paper, 1999, no. 3, illustrated in color in the catalogue
Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Fondation Maeght, Rétrospective Vassily Kandinsky, 2001, no. 14, illustrated in color in the catalogue

Erika Hanfstaengl, Wassily Kandinsky. Zeichnungen und Aquarelle. Katalog der Sammlung in der Städtischen Galerie im Lenbachhaus München, Munich, 1974, p. 157
Vivian Endicott Barnett, Kandinsky Watercolours, Catalogue Raisonné, vol. I, London, 1992, no. 205, illustrated p. 185

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Entwurf für eine Affiche einer französischen Brauerei depicts a large female figure extravagantly pouring a bottle of beer, surrounded by a litany of smaller figures engaged in various activities. The scene is set against a vivid blue sky above the ominous silhouette of industrial chimneys and black mountains and is underpinned by the artist’s words: "Place Pour Le Texte." The composition is unusual for its commercial intent, most likely a piece commissioned for a French brewery which was never realized. However, the figures in the background speak to the distinct themes in Kandinsky’s art at the beginning of the twentieth century. In 1900 Kandinsky was accepted into the atelier of Franz von Stuck; it was here that he rejected the prevailing established Munich School of painting and begin to experiment with a more sensuous and symbolic content in his art. Using romantic fairy-tale subjects, such as mounted knights and Russian folk figures, to the right of the composition, he was able to nostalgically reference his homeland. The figures to the left of the composition however allude to a more contemporary source of inspiration. In 1906 Kandinsky and his partner Gabriele Munter left Munich to travel to Paris. The couple spent a year in France staying in the small town of Sèvres just beyond the city limits of Paris. Here Kandinsky became embedded in French artistic society, exhibiting alongside the Fauves and studying the work of van Gogh, Gauguin and Toulouse-Lautrec. The Catholic priest, caped drinker and dashing belle-époque rogue are clear references to this time spent in Paris, where the present work was executed.