Wassily Kandinsky

'Improvisation 7' second ed. woodcut from 'Klänge' by Wassily Kandinsky

1911

The present woodcut print comes from 'Klänge (Sounds),' a book of original graphics and poetry by Wassily Kandinsky. This first edition was released in an edition of 300, each book signed and numbered by the artist. The title of the album and this particular print, 'Improvisation,' demonstrated Kandinsky's interest in music and how abstract musical forms could be translated into images on a two-dimensional surface. This particular composition is difficult to read, but through the abstraction, one can make out various figures and a landscape beyond. 7.5 x 5 inches, image 22 x 19.5 inches, frame Woodcut in black ink on laid paper (watermark Van Gelder Zonen) Signed with encircled 'K' in the block, lower right Framed to conservation standards using 100 percent acid free archival materials including silk-lined matting with 1/4 inch bevel, museum glass, and a gold-gilded moulding Ref. Roethel 124 The Museum of Modern Art described 'Klänge (Sounds)' as follows: Vasily Kandinsky's self-described "musical album," Klänge (Sounds), consists of thirty-eight prose-poems he wrote between 1909 and 1911 and fifty-six woodcuts he began in 1907. In the woodcuts Kandinsky veiled his subject matter, creating increasingly indecipherable images (though the horse and rider, his symbol for overcoming objective representation, runs through as a leitmotif). This process proved crucial for the development of abstraction in his art. Kandinsky said his choice of media sprang from an "inner necessity" for expression: the woodcuts were not merely illustrative, nor were the poems purely verbal descriptions. Kandinsky sought a synthesis of the arts, in which meaning was created through the interaction of, and space between, text and image, sound and meaning, mark and blank space. The experimental typography shows his interest in the physical aspects of the book. Klänge is one of three major publications by Kandinsky that appeared shortly before World War I, alongside Über die Geistige in der Kunst (Concerning the Spiritual in Art) and the Blaue Reiter almanac...

This poster, published in 1971 for the Fondation Maeght, proudly boasts a lithographic rendering of Wassily Kandinsky's 1922 mural plans for the Juryfreie exhibition in Germany. It w...

"Arroyo" is a woodcut and monotype signed by Carol Summers. The print is a break from the usual bright coloring of Summers' images, though is rendered in his typical style and fields of unmodeled color. A pair of trees stand front and center before an arroyo, a Spanish term for an intermittently dry creek, running out to the ocean. A white sunrise glows in the distance beyond the sea. The playfulness of the image is enhanced by Summers' signature printmaking technique, which allows the ink from the woodblock to seep through the paper, blurring the edges of each form. 14.25 x 14 inches, artwork Numbered from the edition of 120 This print was commissioned by the Madison Print Club, Madison, WI Carol Summers (1925-2016) worked as an artist throughout the second half of the 20th century and into the first years of the next, outliving most of his mid-century modernist peers. Initially trained as a painter, Summers was drawn to color woodcuts around 1950 and it became his specialty thereafter. Over the years he has developed a process and style that is both innovative and readily recognizable. His art is known for its large scale, saturated fields of bold color, semi-abstract treatment of landscapes from around the world, and a luminescent quality achieved through a printmaking process he invented. In a career that has extended over half a century, Summers has hand-pulled approximately 245 woodcuts in editions that have typically run from 25 to 100 in number. His talent was both inherited and learned. Born in 1925 in Kingston, a small town in upstate New York, Summers was raised in nearby Woodstock with his older sister, Mary. His parents were both artists who had met in art school in St. Louis. During the Great Depression, when Carol was growing up, his father supported the family as a medical illustrator until he could return to painting. His mother was a watercolorist and also quite knowledgeable about the different kinds of papers used for various kinds of painting. Many years later, Summers would paint or print on thinly textured paper originally collected by his mother. From 1948 to 1951, Carol Summers trained in the classical fine and studio arts at Bard College and at the Art Students League of New York. He studied painting with Steven Hirsh and printmaking with Louis Schanker. He admired the shapes and colors favored by early modernists Paul Klee (Sw: 1879-1940) and Matt Phillips (Am: b.1927- ). After graduating, Summers quit working as a part-time carpenter and cabinetmaker (which had supported his schooling and living expenses) to focus fulltime on art. That same year, an early abstract, Bridge No. 1 was selected for a Purchase Prize in a competition sponsored by the Brooklyn Museum. In 1952, his work (Cathedral, Construction, and Icarus) was shown for the first time at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in an exhibition of American woodcuts. In 1954, Summers received a grant from the Italian government to study for a year in Italy. Woodcuts completed soon after his arrival there were almost all editions of only 8 to 25 prints, small in size, architectural in content, and black and white in color. The most well-known are Siennese Landscape and Little Landscape, which depicted the area near where he resided. Summers extended this trip three more years, a decision that would have a significant impact on choices of subject matter and color in the coming decade. After returning from Europe, Summers’ images continued to feature historical landmarks and events from Italy as well as from France, Spain, and Greece. However, as evidenced in Aetna’s Dream, Worldwind, and Arch of Triumph...

Woodcut in colors on Japanese paper. Signed and titled by artist. 24.25" x 24.25" art 34.88" x 34.63" frame Carol Summers (1925-2016) has worked as an artist throughout the second ...

"The Bighorn at Night" is an original woodcut signed and titled by the artist, Carol Summers. It is edition 48/50. Catalogue raisonné listing: cat. 105...

"Man With Horses" is a signed relief print in red and black on rag paper. It is signed lower right and from an edition of 120. 28 1/4" x 18 3/8" image...

Black and White Woodcut. Published in 1909 in an edition of 100 to be used as a card member for the group of artists "Neu Kunstler-Vereingun Munchen". The impression is complete in ...

KANDINSKY, Wassily. Allerheiligen- All Saints Day. Original three-color woodcut (red, yellow ochre, blue – with olive green). 1911. Signed with the monogram...

Ecce Homo VII Woodcut, 1921 Signed, titled, and dated in pencil by the artist One of only three known impressions Created while the artist was studying at the Bauhaus in Weimar, Germ...

A very good, richly-inked impression of this color woodcut. Second state (of 2). Signed and dated in pencil. Published by R. Piper & Co., Marées-Gesellschaft, Munich. From "Der Dritt...

Plate 12 From: 10 Origi, 1942 Signed in the block with the artist's initials lower left (printed) From: 10 Origin Not from the First edition 100, published by Allianz-Verlag, Zurich,...

2011, Intaglio on rice paper AP edition