Exhibition

Kandinsky

Name: Kandinsky
Start: 2026-09-15
End: 2027-02-14

15 Sep 2026 - 14 Feb 2027

Palazzo Bonaparte, Rome

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Vassily Kandinsky, « Gelb-Rot-Blau » (Jaune-rouge-bleu), 1925 (détail) Domaine public Photo : © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI/Adam Rzepka/Dist. GrandPalaisRmn

This retrospective, featuring some sixty works by Kandinsky, retraces his extraordinary journey through Russia, Germany and France. Thanks to donations and the succession of his widow Nina Kandinsky, Centre Pompidou conserves the most comprehensive collection of works by this key 20^th century artist.

Vassily Kandinsky, « Gelb-Rot-Blau » (Jaune-rouge-bleu), 1925 (détail) Domaine public Photo : © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI/Adam Rzepka/Dist. GrandPalaisRmn

The exhibition has been divided into five chapters, charting his initial figurative works, the beginnings of abstract art in Munich, his return to his Russian homeland during the revolutionary years, his teachings at the Bauhaus and finally his later years in Paris.

The work of Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), has long been considered to be the first expression of non figurative art in the early 20^th century. Abstract art has now been acknowledged to have sprung from several sources, still, this Russian artist’s decisive contributions to the idea of “autonomous” art, freed of all references to the outer world, shine through his theoretical work and in his role as instigator, publisher and teacher.

At the age of thirty, the young Russian decided to give up his law studies and leave his homeland to pursue a career as a painter in Munich. Two artistic experiences were decisive: first, the discovery of one of Claude Monet’s Haystacks, whose powerful non- figurative rendering made a lasting impression on him, and second, a performance of Lohengrin at the Bolshoi Theatre.Wagner’s opera revealed to him the inherent power of an art form as abstract as music, capable of generating colourful inner images.

The synthesis of the arts would become a constant in Kandinsky’s work, particularly from 1911 to 1914. The outbreak of war in 1914 put an end to this effervescent period in Munich. The Russian artist was forced to return to his native country, where he helped to restructure the artistic life of revolutionary Russia until he was invited in 1921 to join the famous Bauhaus school in Germany. But its closure by the Nazi regime in 1933 forced Kandinsky into exile once again, this time to Paris, where he remained until the end of his life in 1944.