KANDINSKY IN MUNICH KANDINSKY IN MUNICH: 1896-1914 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Library and Archives http://www.archive.org/details/kandinskyinmunicOOkand KANDINSKY IN MUNICH 1896-1914 This exhibition is supported by Philip Morris Incorporated and the National Endowment for the Humanities, a Federal Agency The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Published by The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, 1981 ISBN: 0-89207-030-- Library of Congress Card Catalog Number: 81-83561 c The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, 1982. Cover: Kandinsky, Improvisation VI (African). 191 1 (cat. no. z6i) THE SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM FOUNDATION president Peter O. Lawson-Johnston vice-president The Right Honorable Earl Castle Stewart trustees Anne L. Armstrong, Michel David-Weill, Joseph W. Donner, Robin Chandler Duke, John Hilson, Harold W. McGraw, Jr., Wendy L.-J. McNeil, Thomas M. Messer, Frank R. Milliken, A. Chauncey Newlin, Lewis T. Preston, Seymour Slive, Albert E. Thiele, Michael F. Wettach, William T. Ylvisaker honorary trustees Solomon R. Guggenheim, Justin K. Thannhauser, Peggy Guggenheim in perpetuity advisory board Elaine Dannheisser, Susan Morse Hilles, Morton L. Janklow, Barbara Jonas, Bonnie Ward Simon, Stephen C. Swid staff Henry Berg, Counsel Theodore G. Dunker, Secretary-Treasurer; Aili Pontynen, Assistant Treasurer; Barry Bragg, Assistant to the Treasurer; Margaret P. Cauchois, Assistant; Veronica M. O'Connell director Thomas M. Messer THE SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM Diane Waldman, Director of Exhibitions Catherine Grimshaw, Secretary to the Director Cynthia M. Kessel, Administrative Assistant STAFF Louise Averill Svendsen, Senior Curator; Vivian Endicott Barnett, Research Curator; Lisa Dennison Tabak, Assistant Curator; Carol Fuerstein, Editor; Sonja Bay, Associate Librarian; Ward Jackson, Archivist; Philip Verre, Collections Coordinator; Susan B. Hirschfeld, Exhibitions Coordinator; Lucy Flint, Curatorial Coordinator; Cynthia Clark, Editorial Assistant Margit Rowell, Curator of Special Exhibitions Orrin H. Riley, Conservator; Elizabeth Estabrook, Conservation Assistant; Harold B. Nelson, Registrar; Jane Rubin, William J. Alonso, Assistant Registrars; Marion Kahan, Registrar's Coordinator; Saul Fuerstein, Preparator; William Smith, Preparation Assistant; Scott A. Wixon, Operations Manager; Tony Moore, Assistant Operations Manager; Takayuki Amano, Head Carpenter; Carmelo Guadagno, Photographer; David M. Heald, Associate Photographer; Holly Fullam, Photography Coordinator Mimi Poser, Officer for Development and Public Affairs; Carolyn Porcelli, Ann Kraft, Development Associates; Susan L. Halper, Membership Associate; Jessica Schwartz, Public Affairs Associate; Cynthia Wootton, Development Coordinator; Michele Rowe-Shields, Public Affairs Coordinator; Linda Gering, Public Affairs Assistant; Susan Berger-Jones, Membership Assistant Agnes R. Connolly, Auditor; James O'Shea, Sales Coordinatot ; Robert Turner, Restaurant Manager; Rosemary Faella, Assistant Restaurant Manager; Darrie Hammer, Katherine W. Briggs, Information David A. Sutter, Building Superintendent; Charles Gazzola, Assistant Building Superintend- ent; Charles F. Banach, Head Guard; Elbio Almiron, Marie Bradley, Assistant Head Guards life members Eleanor, Countess Castle Stewart, Mr. and Mrs. Werner Dannheisser, William C. Edwards, Jr., Mr. and Mrs. Andrew P. Fuller, Mrs. Bernard F. Gimbel, Mr. and Mrs. Peter O. Lawson-Johnston, Mrs. Samuel I. Rosenman, Mrs. S. H. Scheuer, Mrs. Hilde Thannhauser corporate patrons Alcoa Foundation, Atlantic Richfield Foundation, Exxon Corporation, Mobil Corporation, Philip Morris Incorporated government patrons National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, New York State Council on the Arts LENDERS TO THE EXHIBITION Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin J. Fortson, Fort Mittelrhcinischcs Landesmuseum, Mainz Special Collections, LIniversity Library, State Worth University of New York at Binghamton Miinchner Stadtmuseum, Munich Felix Klee, Bern Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Staatliche Miinter- und Johannes Eichner- Gabriele Museen, Kunstbibliothek Berlin Kenneth C. Lindsay, Binghamton, New York Stiftung, Munich Stiftung Saarlandischer Kulturbesitz, Heirs of Dr. \V. Macke, Bonn Musee National d'Art Moderne, Paris Saarbriicken Professor J. A. Schmoll-Eisenwerth, Munich Museum of Applied Arts, Helsinki Wachtersbacher Keramik, Brachttal, Germany Lawrence Schoenherg, Los Angeles Museum Bellerive, Zurich Wiirttembergische Landesbibliothek, Thomas P. Whitney Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Stuttgart Rotterdam Siegfried Wichmann Wiirttembergisches Landesmuseum Stuttgart Museum Folkwang, Essen Music Library, Yale LIniversity, New Haven Architektursammlung der Technischen Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg Universitat, Munich The Museum of Modern Art, New York Davlyn Gallery, New York The Art Museum of the Ateneum, Helsinki Museum Villa Stuck, Munich Galerie Gunzenhauser, Munich The Art Reference Library, The Brooklyn Narodna Galerija, Ljubljana Museum, New York The New York State Library, The Univer- Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe sity of the State of New York, Cultural Edu- Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich cation Center, Albany Pelikan-Kunstsammlung, Hannover Bayerische Staatsgemaldesammlungen, Munich Price-Gilbert Library, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Deutsches Theatermuseum, Munich Princeton University Libraries, Princeton, Gallen-Kallela Museum, Espoo, Finland New Jersey The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Schiller-Nationalmuseum/ Deutsches New York Literarturarchiv, Marbach Hessischses Landesmuseum Darmstadt Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich Kunsthalle Bremen Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Kunstmuseum Bern Nationalgalerie, Berlin Kimstmuseum Hannover mit Sammlung Staatliches Museum fiir Volkerkunde, Sprengel Munich Graphische Sammlung, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart Graphische Sammlung, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen Stadtbibliothek mit Handschriftensammlung, Munich Kupferstichkabinett, Kunstmuseum Basel Stadtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich Special Collections, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Stadtisches Museum Flensburg TABLE OF CONTENTS 8 Sponsor's Statement 9 Preface and Acknowledgements Thomas M. Messer 13 Foreword Carl E. Scborske 17 Munich as Cultural Center: Politics and the Arts Peter Jelavicb 28 Kandinsky in Munich: Encounters and Transformations PegWeiss 83 Catalogue 303 Chronology Peg Weiss 307 Selected Bibliography PegWeiss 310 Index of Artists in the Catalogue 311 Photographic Credits . SPONSOR'S STATEAAENT Philip Morris was introduced to the work of Vasily Kandinsky at the Guggenheim Museum a little more than a year ago when we sponsored the exhibition Expres- sionism—a German Intuition 1905-1920. We return now to become better acquainted with this artist who was one of the originators of abstract art in the early years of our century. One of a striking series of exhibitions undertaken by the Guggenheim, Kandinsky in Munich reflects the audaciousness of this adventurer who searched tirelessly for a new way to express the enduring human spirit in a world fraught with turbulence and change. Philip Morris is proud to be associated with the Museum's sweeping presentation of the art of Kandinsky and bis contemporaries in Munich, which offers insight into the environment and times of this courageous innovator who, with his personal vision for compass, discovered a new world. What seems most instructive to us is not so much that Kandinsky found this new world, which he populated with original and challenging imagery, but that he dared to think such a world must exist and resolutely set out to render it visible. And he knew the way. In the course of evolving his first total abstraction, perhaps the first pure abstraction ever painted, Kandinsky told his eager colleagues, "there is one [answer] ivhich art can always employ to any question beginning with 'must': there is no 'must' in art, because art is free." In Kandinsky' s studio, said jean Arp, "speech and form and color fused and were transmuted into fabulous, extraordinary worlds." He led them to a place where no one had been before, and pioneered in shaping the landscape of our new cultural, social and psychological environment. Our institutions—industry significant among them—have made their most radical advances since Kandinsky set foot on the new shore. I am not suggesting that par- allels may easily be drawn among artistic, social and technological developments, but perhaps a strong kinship wrought by change prevails. Because he pressed toward a new realm, Kandinsky continues to inspire us today. Philip Morris, I hope, will never cease to pay homage to those who dare to move beyond their environment and time. By their creative example, they beckon us for- ward. Human enterprise advances best when it is least encumbered and most in- spired. This they knew in every age of history, those explorers of the future. In their vanguard is Kandinsky george weissman, Chairman of the Board Philip Morris Incorporated PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Vasily Kandinsky, it may be stated fairly, lived at least three lives in one. In the course of his seventy-eight years, despite an exceptionally late start as an artist, his work encompassed three stylistic phases which, though ultimately comprehensible as a unity, nevertheless are more than ordinarily separable from one another. Each of these—in Munich before World War I; at the Bau- haus during the postwar years; and in