Wassily Kandinsky 108 High Resolution Images

Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) was a Russian painter and art theorist. Born in Moscow, he spent his childhood in Odessa, where he graduated from Odessa Art School. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics, and went on to teach both subjects. He was successful in his profession and was offered a professorship (chair of Roman Law) at the University of Dorpat (today Tartu, Estonia). In Moscow, he saw an exhibition of paintings by Monet. He was particularly taken with the impressionistic style of Haystacks; this, to him, had a powerful sense of colour almost independent of the objects themselves. 

In 1896, at the age of 30, Kandinsky gave up his promising teaching career to pursue an artistic one, settling in Munich, studying first at Anton Ažbe's private school and then at the Academy of Fine Arts. From 1906 to 1908, Kandinsky spent a great deal of time travelling across Europe (he was an associate of the Blue Rose symbolist group of Moscow) until he settled in the small Bavarian town of Murnau. In 1908, he bought a copy of Thought-Forms by Annie Besant and Charles Webster Leadbeater with illustrations by John Varley, which influenced him visually. In 1909, he joined the Theosophical Society. 

Read our full Kandinsky biography.