Wassily Kandinsky

Born in Moscow and grown up in Odessa, Kandinsky was influenced by colour since his youth. Only at the age of 30 he gave up a successful career as Law and Economics teacher to enroll at the Munich Academy. He was deeply influenced by Monet’s Haystacks, Wagner’s Lohengrin and Madame Blavatsky’s theosophy. With the beginning of the new century Kandinsky started to develop his artistic inclination, discovering and applying colour and shapes. Few human subjects featured in Sunday, Old Russia, Riding Couple and Der Blaue Reiter. Between 1911 and 1914 he formed a new group called Der Blaue Reiter with like-minded artists and publishing the group Almanac, interrupted only at its second issue by the start of WWI. In the Almanac Kandinsky theorised On the Spiritual in Art, which led him to be displayed in the Allied Artists Exhibition at the London Royal Albert Hall. In 1921 he was invited by Gropius to attend the Bauhaus in Weimar. For the following decade Kandinsky taught the base design class and advanced theory.