Lot 268
  • 268

WASSILY KANDINSKY | Schwacher Bogen (Weak Arc)

Estimate
250,000 - 350,000 USD
bidding is closed

Description

  • Wassily Kandinsky
  • Schwacher Bogen (Weak Arc)
  • Signed with the artist's monogram and dated 29 (lower left); signed with the artist's monogram, titled, numbered no. 335 and dated 1929 (on the verso)
  • Watercolor and pen and ink on paper mounted on card
  • 19 5/8 by 10 1/4 in.
  • 50 by 26 cm
  • Executed in February 1929.

Provenance

Anatole Jakovski, Paris (acquired in February 1935)
Fernand Graindorge, Liège
Heinz Berggruen, Paris (acquired in 1955)
Kleeman Galleries, New York (acquired in 1956)
Dr. Robert Schnell, Zurich
Sale: Klipstein & Kornfeld, Bern, May 24, 1962, lot 80
Galerie Berggruen, Paris
Nantenshi Gallery, Tokyo
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Exhibited

Halle, Roter Turm, Hallischer Kunstverein & Städtisches Museum, Alte Garnisonskirche and Roter Turm, 1929, n.n.

Literature

The artist's handlist, no. 335
Vivian Endicott Barnett, Kandinsky Watercolours, Catalogue Raisonné, 1922-1944, vol. II, London, 1994, no. 926, illustrated p. 246

Condition

Executed on cream wove paper which has been mounted to a cream colored card. The card is taped to a window mat with tape at all four corners of its verso. There are remnants of old adhesive along the perimeter of the verso. There is a one inch flattened crease extending from the lower right edge. There is a pinhole in the sheet along the top edge in the upper left corner.
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.

Catalogue Note

Kandinsky was probably introduced to the use of the spray technique in his watercolors by Klee, his close friend and neighbor at the Bauhaus. First used in 1927, it was a technique that characterized most of Kandinsky's works on paper from 1928-30. Vivian Endicott Barnett has written of the spray technique “the elements begin to hover and glide, become transparent, and seem even more immaterial than other works of the Bauhaus period” (Vivian Endicott Barnett, op. cit., p. 28). Barnett writes further of Kandinsky, “Both in Russia and at the Bauhaus he set out...to furnish his own conception of art with what he regarded as a scientific basis, one that was transferable as a model to other arts. There were bound to be conflicts; and one of the reasons for Kandinsky's failure in Moscow was that the younger artists, such as Rodchenko and Stepanova, did not share his approach. The Bauhaus was very different: expressionist, theosophical, socioromantic, and oriental ideas played a major part in the prehistory and immediate origins of the institution. But above all, Kandinsky was not alone in Weimar and Dessau. There was his evident affinity with Klee, who...also regarded art as an analogy of creation itself” (Vivian Endicott Barnett & Armin Zweite, Kandinsky, Watercolors and Drawings, Munich, 1992, p. 28).