Wassily Kandinsky "Oriental" woodcut from Regards sur le passé, 1971

Wassily Kandinsky "Oriental", woodcut in colours from "Regards sur le Passé". Originally published in 1907 this is a later re-print from 1971 by the publisher Pierre Belfond. Image size 12.5x19cm.

Catalogue Raissoné 106.

Excellent condition.

Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) was born in Russia but travelled widely during his life.  Kandinsky originally pursued an academic career until the 1890s. At this time he began to take up art and drawing. He moved to Munich in 1896 where he studied at the Academy of Fine Art. He was originally influenced by Impressionism but after 1902 turned to use of colour as a more expressionistic medium and was one of the originators of that movement in Germany which became associated with the name of one of his paintings Der Blau Reiter (1903). A leading art theorist, he is credited as one of the most important pioneers of abstraction in art. It is difficult to overestimate  the importance of his work to modernism. He also worked and taught at the Bauhaus in Germany from 1922-33. After the closure of the Bauhaus he moved to Paris where he was to remain for the rest of his life. His interest and work in expressionism, spiritualism, abstraction and color theory make him one of the most significant and important artists on the Twentieth Century.