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Washington University in St. Louis
Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts

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Wassily Kandinsky

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

1922

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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 I (Small Worlds I), from the series Kleine Welten (Small Worlds)
  • Date 1922
  • Medium Lithograph
  • Edition description ed. 200
  • Dimensions unframed | 14 x 11 in.
  • Credit line University purchase, Plant Replacement Fund, 1964
  • Object number WU 4207

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

Models and Prototypes 2006

1964
Werner Drewes

Inscription LL in plate: "K 22"; 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.

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October 25, 2006–December 31, 2006

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