Wassily Kandinsky

Nina Kandinsky, Paris (the artist's widow)
Galerie Beyeler, Basel (acquired in 1972)
Sale: Christie's, London, 28th November 1995, lot 50
Purchased at the above sale by the late owner

Tenerife, Circulo de bellas artes, Esposicion de arte contemporaneo: Collection ‘Gacetade art’, 1936, no. 42
Paris, Galerie Maeght, Kandinsky: aquarelles et gouaches. Collection privée de Madame W. Kandinsky, 1957, no. 62
New York, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Paris, Musée National d’Art Moderne; The Hague, Gemeente Museum & Basel, Kunsthalle, Wassily Kandinsky: A Retrospective Exhibition, 1963, no. 25
Basel, Galerie Beyeler, Kandinsky, Aquarelle und Zeichnungen, 1972, no. 65, illustrated in colour in the catalogue (titled Roter Punkt)
Paris, Galerie Karl Flinker, Kandinsky: peintures, dessins, gravures, editions, œuvres inédites, 1972, no. 8
New York, The Pace Gallery, Kandinsky: Watercolours and Drawings, 1911-1943, 1973, no. 21, illustrated in colour on the cover of the catalogue

The artist’s handlist: ‘Watercolours’: ix1935, 560, Réciproque (Pochoir pour ‘Sintesi Bercelone, Temp.)
Vivian Endicott Barnett, Kandinsky Watercolours, Catalogue Raisonné, London, 1994, vol. II, no. 1189, illustrated p. 413

The card is stable, T-hinged to the mount in the top two corners. There are artist's pinholes in all four corners. There is a small repaired tear in the lower right corner, not visible when mounted. Apart from some small spots of faint liquid staining and some tiny scattered spots of foxing, this work is in good condition. Colours: Overall fairly accurate in the printed catalogue illustration, although the background is less yellow and the blue tones are fresher in the original.
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Reciproque was executed in Paris in 1935, at a time when the Surrealists dominated the cultural scene and the city was alive with avant-garde artists. Kandinsky had a long association with Paris which he had first visited in 1889 and in the last days of 1933 the decision was made emigrate to France from an increasingly hostile Germany. He and his wife settled at 135 Boulevard de la Seine in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a wealthy inner suburb of Paris, where he was to live out the remainder of his life. On 23rd January in 1934 Kandinsky wrote to his friend Jawlensky: 'We don't want to leave Germany permanently (we've got deep roots there!), but we'd like to stay in Paris for a couple of years... Our flat's on the sixth floor, with a great view of the Seine, the hills behind it, and a huge expanse of sky. The Bois de Boulogne is a couple of minutes away' (quoted in Jelena Hahl-Koch, Kandinsky, London, 1993, p. 322).

Kandinsky's Parisian works explored the mysteries of nature's fundamental elements. In Réciproque the sensuous, suspended forms are created from what Kandinsky described as an 'inner necessity' to find the most apposite form of expression. Like his contemporaries Klee and Arp, Kandinsky had become interested in nature and organic growth. He began to produce anthropomorphic forms in his paintings which grew from ideas about zoology and embryology. Kandinsky found inspiration in scientific journals and would clip photographs and diagrams from articles on deep-sea life. Vivian Endicott Barnett suggested that 'Kandinsky's images of amoebas, embryos and marine invertebrates convey spiritual meaning of beginning, regeneration and a common origin of all life. Because of his spiritual beliefs and his ideas on abstract art, Kandinsky would have responded to the meanings or rebirth and renewal inherent in the new imagery of his Paris pictures' (V. Endicott Barnett in Kandinsky in Paris (exhibition catalogue), The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1985, p. 87).