Skip to main content
Washington University in St. Louis
Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts

Create an account to add artworks to your personal collections.

Enter your email address below to recieve an email to reset your password.

An email has been sent to your inbox to reset your password.

image alt

Wassily Kandinsky

Kleine Welten IV (Small Worlds IV), from the series Kleine Welten (Small Worlds)

1922

image alt
1 / 1

In 1911 Russian emigré and painter Wassily Kandinsky, together with Franz Marc, founded the Expressionist group The Blue Rider in Munich, Germany. By 1922 he was living in Weimar and teaching at the progressive arts and crafts school famously known as the Bauhaus. The Kleine Welten series appeared later that same year. Consisting of both woodcuts and lithographs, these prints illustrate Kandinsky’s use of “veiling” techniques, in which abstract compositions slowly disclose the presence of identifiable figures and objects. Strongly informing each of these “small worlds” is Kandinsky’s knowledge of contemporary developments in urban design, in particular Russian experiments with utopian planning and the garden city movement in the wake of the 1917 Russian Revolution. In prints IV and VII, for example, features of the built environment—towers, railways, grid patterns, even planned belts of green space—appear to take shape amid a field of nonobjective, polymorphic forms, suggesting a thematization of states of perpetual suspension between real and ideal worlds. Owing to their flattened perspectives and impressions of distance, these prints also recall a medieval utopian tradition of depicting cities as remote, often heavenly, kingdoms. [Permanent collection label, 2011]

  • Artist Wassily Kandinsky (German, b. Russia, 1866–1944)
  • Title Kleine Welten IV (Small Worlds IV), from the series Kleine Welten (Small Worlds)
  • Date 1922
  • Medium Lithograph
  • Dimensions unframed | 13 1/2 x 11 1/2 in.
  • Credit line University purchase, Plant Replacement Fund, 1964
  • Object number WU 4206

Models and Prototypes
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 10/25/2006 - 12/31/2006

Tempus Fugit: Time Flies
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, Missouri), 10/15/2000 - 12/31/2000

American and European Prints and Drawings
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 01/12/1998 - 04/05/1998

Models and Prototypes 2006

1964
Werner Drewes

Inscription LL in plate:"K" monogram; LR: "Kandinsky"

This artwork record may be incomplete or need refinement. Our staff actively researches the collection and revises records when new information is available. If you have questions or comments about this record, please contact us.

Related Content

go to American and European Prints and Drawings page
no image
Exhibitions

American and European Prints and Drawings

January 12, 1998–April 05, 1998
go to Tempus Fugit: Time Flies page
no image
Exhibitions

Tempus Fugit: Time Flies

October 15, 2000–December 31, 2000
go to Models and Prototypes page
no image
Exhibitions

Models and Prototypes

October 25, 2006–December 31, 2006

Image Reproduction Request Form

To request image materials and/or permission to reproduce a work of art from the Museum's collection, please complete and submit the form below. The information you provide here will enable us to process your request and assess the appropriate images, permissions, and any applicable fees. 

Typically, image requests that do not require new photography can be completed within three weeks. Whenever possible, rush orders may be accommodated, although additional fees may apply.

If you have questions, please contact Kristin Good, associate registrar, at kristin.good@wustl.edu.

Checking this box constitutes a legal signature. By checking this box, the applicant agrees to abide by all terms and conditions under which permission is granted to reproduce works of art in the collection of the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, and that permission is contingent upon payment of any applicable fees.

* Required fields

test View details