Sale: 432 / Modern Art I, June 11. 2016 in Munich Lot 338

 

338
Wassily Kandinsky
Kleines Warm, 1928.
Watercolor
Estimate:
€ 400,000 / $ 432,000
Sold:
€ 437,500 / $ 472,500

(incl. surcharge)
Kleines Warm. 1928.
Watercolor and India ink drawing.
Barnett 901. Monogrammed and dated lower left. Verso of backing board titled and signed on an adhesive label. On creme wove paper (with watermark), firmly mounted on backing board. 29.9 x 24 cm (11.7 x 9.4 in), the full sheet. Backing board: 31,3 x 25,5 cm (12,3 x 10 in).
The artist's studio list mentions this work with the designation watercolors "X 1928, 311, Kleines Warm".
The strictly geometric compositions from the 1920s, of which many are in possession of acclaimed public and private collections, are among the artist's most sought-after works on paper on the international auction market.

PROVENANCE: Lisa Kümmel, Wiesbaden (obtained as a present from the artist in August 1932).
Family property (through inheritance).
Private collection North Rhine-Westphalia (acquired from previously mentioned).

Despite all its abstraction, the work's lyrical and musical energy is well noticeable. Kandinsky seems to follow familiar paths in the variation of established pictorial elements.The color fields' clarity is captivating. They form the composition's core, forced open and expanded, however, by a soft modulation of the watercolor along the Indiaink lines. An orderly chaos is the tenor of these works, which even left its traces in decorative commercial art of the 1920s. The lyrical, almost romantic element lies in the arrangement of the picture's details. Kandinsky's compositions avoid any form of sharpness of a visual confrontation. Despite all their ostensible reason, their overall effect is characterizedby a mysterious encryption. The message is obvious, while the content remains a secret.



338
Wassily Kandinsky
Kleines Warm, 1928.
Watercolor
Estimate:
€ 400,000 / $ 432,000
Sold:
€ 437,500 / $ 472,500

(incl. surcharge)