Wassily Kandinsky

Valentine Gallery, New York (acquired from the artist in 1932)

Galka Scheyer, Los Angeles (acquired from the above)

Nina Kandinsky, Paris (acquired from the above after 1944)

Galerie Beyeler, Basel (acquired from the above in 1972)

Heinz Berggruen, Paris

Private Collection, Paris

Private Collection, Japan (sold: Sotheby's, New York, May 14, 1997, lot 227)

Private Collection (acquired at the above sale)

Private Collection, Switzerland

Acquired from the above

New York, Valentine Gallery, An Exhibition of Paintings by Kandinsky, 1932, no. 26 (titled Fluttering)

Los Angeles, Stendahl Art Galleries, Kandinsky, 1936, no. 37

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Paintings by Wassily Kandinsky: A Survey 1923 to the Present, 1939, no. 26

Paris, Galerie Maeght, Kandinsky: Bauhaus de Dessau, 1927-1933, 1965, no. 46

Paris, Galerie Karl Flinker, Kandinsky, 1972, no. 25

London, The Lefevre Gallery (Alex. Reid & Lefevre), Kandinsky, 1973, no. 4, illustrated in color in the catalogue (with incorrect provenance)

New York, Acquavella Galleries, Inc., Masters of the 20th Century Art, 1974, no. 6

Will Grohmann, Wassily Kandinsky, Life and Work, New York, 1958, catalogued no. 564, p. 339, illustrated no. 406, p. 383 (catalogued as oil and tempera on cardboard)

"Wassily Kandinsky," Sélection, vol. XIV, Antwerp, 1933, the drawing discussed p. 18

Hans K. Roethel & Jean K. Benjamin,  Kandinsky, Catalogue raisonné of the Oil-Paintings, vol. II, New York, 1983, no. 1010, illustrated p. 911 (catalogued as mixed media on canvas)

Oil on card mounted on a stretcher and backed with linen. Under ultra-violet light, there are widespread areas of retouching which fluorescence scattered throughout the composition to various degrees, the most significant of which are in the lower left and upper right corners and left edge. There is a fine network of craquelure across the surface of the picture, and there are barely noticeable waves to the support. Over all, support is stable and the medium is intact.
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Translucently-colored shapes 'fluttering' in space were a key motif for Kandinsky during the late 1920s and early 1930s while he was teaching at the Bauhaus.  The present work is an example of Kandinsky's taking artistic licence with the Bauhaus' formalist vocabulary of architecture and design.  His focus here is on the stand-alone beauty of geometry rather than its role as a means to an end.  What we see here is the harmonious existence of circles, triangles and quadrilaterals, free of any functional, architectural objective.

Clark V. Poling has written of this period: "Kandinsky's imagery of structures, geometric shapes and arrangements, and space reflected tendencies at the Bauhaus and the Constructivist movement in Germany.  The architectural and technological orientation of the later Bauhaus, particularly in evidence after the architectural department was instituted under Meyer in the spring of 1927, prompted him to create images of structures made up of simple geometric elements.  Whether the reference was to technical constructions or to the human form, his statement, like Klee's in comparable works of the same period, was one of artistic independence from utilitarian ends" (C. V. Poling, Kandinsky', Bauhaus and Russian Years (exhibition catalogue), The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1983, p. 73).

We would like to thank Vivian Endicott Barnett for clarifying the provenance of this painting.