Impressionist & Modern Works on Paper

/

Lot 150
  • 150

Wassily Kandinsky

bidding is closed

Description

  • Wassily Kandinsky
  • BAB SOUIKA IN TUNIS - MONDNACHT (BAB SOUIKA IN TUNIS - MOONLIT NIGHT)
  • signed Kandinsky (lower right); numbered 76 on the reverse 
  • gouache on board
  • 38 by 52.8cm., 15 by 20 3/4 in.

Provenance

Galerie Der Sturm, Berlin
Gummesons Konstgalleri, Stockholm (until the mid-1930s)
Gregor Aronowitsch, Stockholm
Galleri Heden, Gothenberg (sale: Sotheby's, London, 4th April 1979, lot 229)
Private Collection, Sweden

Exhibited

Malmö, Konsthall, Kandinsky och Sverige, 1989, no. 65, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Literature

Artist's Handlist, Coloured Drawings, 1904-05, no. 76
Will Grohmann, Wassily Kandinsky, Life and Work, London, 1959, p. 343
Vivian Endicott Barnett, Kandinsky Watercolours, Catalogue Raisonné, 1900-1921, London, 1992, vol. I, no. 158, illustrated p. 152

Catalogue Note

Kandinsky arrived in Tunisia accompanied by Gabriele Münter on Christmas Day in 1904. They stayed until April 5th 1905 during which time Kandinsky executed some thirty temperas and gouaches depicting Tunisian everyday life. Vivian Endicott Barnett notes of this particular work: 'Although the painting has been known as Bab Souika in Tunis and was inscribed accordingly by the artist, Kandinsky titled the work "Mondnacht" in the Handlist and on an old photograph (Munter Eichner Stiftung).  Apparently he confused numbers 76 and 77 in the Handlist of coloured drawings.  However, the specific motif of the present picture can be identified as the gate of Bal El Kadra' (V. Endicott Barnett, op. cit., p. 152).