"Panel for Edwin R.
Campbell No. 4," Vasily Kandinsky, 1914. Oil on canvas from the
Museum of Modern Art, New York. Nelson A. Rockefeller Fund (by
exchange).
CAMBRIDGE, MASS. - Five works by Russian abstract artist Wassily
Kandinsky (1866-1944) are on exhibition at Harvard's
Busch-Reisinger Museum through July 13. The paintings are on loan
from museums in Paris and New York.
Visitors can view four large panels created for the circular
hallway of a New York apartment (on loan from the Museum of
Modern Art in New York) and a square canvas titled "Painting with
the Red Spot," which now belongs to the Musee National d'Art
Moderne in Paris.
Those interested in studying Kandinsky's work in more depth can
find "Jocular Sounds," a 1929 painting from his Bauhaus period,
in a gallery nearby. In addition, many of his drawings,
watercolors, gouaches and prints are available for viewing in the
museum's study room during public hours (Tuesday through Friday,
2 to 4:45 pm or by appointment).
Kandinsky was one of the most accomplished pioneers of radically
abstract painting in the Twentieth Century. After studying law,
economics and ethnography in Moscow, he took up art at age 30 and
moved to Munich, Germany. There he was a founder, along with his
friend and colleague Franz Marc, of the influential Blue Rider
group (1911-1914). The group published an almanac and mounted
exhibitions that promoted the renewal of art through so-called
primitive styles, spiritual goals and a universalism of creative
friendship.
During his time in Germany, Kandinsky gradually evolved toward
nonrepresentationalism, and sometime in 1913 or 1914, he made an
important transition to wholly nonobjective works.
Kandinsky was commissioned in 1914 to paint four large panels for
a circular hallway in the Park Avenue apartment of Edwin R.
Campbell (1874-1929), one of the founders of the Chevrolet Motor
Car Company. The project appealed to Kandinsky's lifelong
interest in decoratively transforming the indoor and outdoor
environments.
The four panels form a dramatic group, "one of the great
ensembles of Twentieth Century painting," according to Peter
Nisbet, Daimler-Benz curator of the Busch-Reisinger Museum. "In
their varying formats and diverging deployment of rich color,
differing brushstrokes and varying compositional densities, the
panels can seem to envelop and surround the viewer," he said.
By contrast, the single painting titled "Painting with the Red
Spot" is perfectly square and seems to invite the viewer to
become immersed in its deep vortex of forms. "In its geometric
purity and dimensional quality, the square has almost become the
emblematic format for modern abstract painting," Nisbet said.
The Busch-Reisinger Museum is at 32 Quincy Street. For
information, 617-495-9400 or artmuseums.harvard.edu.
