Wassily Kandinsky 1866-1944

Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) was a Russian-born painter and art theorist whose work played a fundamental role in the development of abstract art. Born in Moscow and raised in Odessa, Kandinsky initially studied law and economics before turning to art at the age of thirty. In 1896 he moved to Munich, where he began his artistic training and soon became involved in the avant-garde artistic circles of the time.

Kandinsky gradually moved away from figurative representation, exploring the expressive possibilities of colour, line, form and composition independently of the visible world. Around 1910, he created works in which these elements became the subject in their own right, making him one of the central pioneers of abstraction in modern art.

After returning to Moscow during the First World War, Kandinsky moved back to Germany in 1921. From 1922 to 1933, he taught at the Bauhaus, where his ideas about colour, form and the relationship between art and spirituality became an important part of his teaching. His theoretical writings, particularly Concerning the Spiritual in Art, also had a lasting influence on the understanding and development of abstract art.

When the Bauhaus was closed by the Nazi regime in 1933, Kandinsky moved to France, where he spent the final years of his life. His work continued to evolve, combining geometric forms with increasingly complex and organic compositions.

Kandinsky remains one of the defining figures of twentieth-century art. His radical rethinking of the relationship between colour, form and representation fundamentally changed the possibilities of painting and established abstraction as one of the central languages of modern art.