Small Worlds III

1917–1921

Cultural politics in revolutionary Moscow

After the revolution Kandinsky worked actively in public life: he helped protect monuments, founded the Museum of Painterly Culture and the Russian Academy of Artistic Sciences, taught at the Vkhutemas, sat on the fine arts collegium of the People's Commissariat for Education and chaired the All-Russian purchasing commission. He also became vice-president of the RAKhN.

1918–1921

The Institute of Artistic Culture: rejected by the radicals

Kandinsky became the first director of the Institute of Artistic Culture in Moscow, but the institute's radical members judged his spiritual, expressionist view of art too individualistic and bourgeois. He painted little in these years but taught a great deal, using a programme of form and colour analysis.

June 1920

Death of his son Vsevolod

Kandinsky's son Vsevolod died in June 1920; the couple had no more children.

December 1921

Leaves for Berlin

In December 1921 Kandinsky left for Berlin to set up a branch of the RAKhN there. He took part in the First Russian Art Exhibition in Germany and began teaching painting.

summer 1922

Teacher at the Bauhaus

From the summer of 1922 Kandinsky worked at the Bauhaus and became a leading theorist of the school. In the interwar years he gained worldwide recognition as one of the leaders of abstract art.

1923

The Blue Four

At the instigation of Galka Scheyer, Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger and Alexej von Jawlensky formed the group the Blue Four; from 1924 Scheyer promoted their work in the United States.