Printer: Mourlot

Dimensions: 64 x 36 cm

Condition: Very good 

Frame: Oak

Description: Printed in 1959, this original lithographic poster was produced to promote a major exhibition of Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee at the Galerie Berggruen in Paris. Founded by the distinguished art dealer Heinz Berggruen, the gallery became one of the great centres of post-war modern art, exhibiting works by artists including Picasso, Matisse, Klee and Kandinsky.

Kandinsky is widely regarded as one of the pioneers of abstract art. He believed that colours, lines and shapes could evoke emotion in much the same way as music, creating paintings that were intended to be felt as much as understood. After studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, he gradually abandoned representational painting, developing a visual language that transformed twentieth-century art. His influence extended far beyond the canvas. As a teacher at the Bauhaus from 1922, he helped shape generations of artists, architects and designers with his revolutionary ideas on colour, composition and design.

Beautifully printed by Mourlot, this poster brings together two giants of modern art at one of Paris’s most influential galleries. It captures a remarkable moment in post-war Paris, when collectors could discover the work of Kandinsky and Klee side by side, and remains a superb example of the golden age of the French exhibition poster.

Artist: Wassily Kandinsky was an influential Russian painter and art theorist who pioneered abstract art in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He had originally studied law and economics and didn’t focus on art until he was 30. He taught himself to draw while he waited for a place to study at the University of Munich. He was inspired by Monet’s Haystacks and he listened to music by Wagner because he would hear colour as sound. Philosophy, spiritualism and inner vision also inspired him to develop his artistic style. Later, in 1922, he taught at the Bauhaus in Weimar, and was given his first solo show in New York the following year. He moved with the Bauhaus to Dessau in 1925 becoming a German citizen in 1928. Many of his works were confiscated by the Nazis in 1937 during their purge of ‘degenerate art’ and after another move, he acquired French citizenship. He died in 1944 in Neuilly, near Paris.