Wassily Kandinsky

J.B. Neumann, New York (acquired in 1936)
Mme. Leghait
Private Collection
Sale: Sotheby’s, New York, November 16, 1989, lot 172
Private Collection, Switzerland (acquired in 1990)

New York, Helly Nahmad Gallery, KANDINSKY Sounds of Color, 2004, illustrated in color in the catalogue

Vivian Endicott Barnett, Kandinsky, Catalogue Raisonné of the Watercolors, vol. II, Ithaca, 1994, no. 1194, illustrated p. 416

Executed on card which has been painted and laid down on a board mount. The card and board are sound. The card is faintly mat stained and there are some extremely minor abraisions to its outer perimeter. There are faint signs of foxing to the card and to the mount, as well as a few faint and scattered studio marks. The work is otherwise fine and in overall very good condition.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Meticulously plotted with ruled lines, Kandinsky’s architectonic rendering of Kleine Flächenis a continuation of his Bauhaus legacy, now reformulated for Surrealist Paris. After he left Germany upon the closing of the Bauhaus in 1933, Kandinsky immersed himself amidst the hotbed of creative activity in the French capital where he incorporated some of the stylistic predilections of his contemporaries. Those pictures that he completed thenceforward and until his death in 1944 reflect the influences of this dominant avant-garde movement of the 1930s and early 1940s, yet retained many of linear and color principles that had been a staple in Kandinsky’s work since the 1920s. The black background that Kandinsky has chosen for the present composition, for example, was a common feature in the works of Léger and Masson during the 1930s. But, ever the committed theoretician, Kandinsky remained true to many of the formal principles that he had promoted while teaching at the Bauhaus and incorporated them into this multi-dimensional image.

Kandinsky has plotted every element of the present composition with a calculated precision that clearly evidences his formal and mathematical influences of Bauhaus design. The artist has taken a distinctly level-headed approach in his rendering of the composition, both in its methodical arrangement and balanced tonality, which may explain his title for the picture. Kandinsky credited the light in Paris with the richer tonality that is evidenced in his paintings from these years. "The Paris light is very important to me," he wrote to Galka Scheyer in 1935. "The difference to light in central Germany is enormous—here it can be simultaneously bright and gentle. There are gray, overcast days also, with no rain, which is rare in Germany. The light on these gray days is incredibly rich, with a varied range of color and an endless degree of tones. Such a quality of light reminds me of the light conditions in and around Moscow. So I feel 'at home' in this light" (quoted in J. Hahl-Koch, Kandinsky, Brussels, 1993, p. 356).