“WASSILY KANDINSKY IMPORTANT SIGNED LETTER REGARDING THE PUBLICATION OF HIS ART,” MY DRAWINGS STILL EXIST…THE NECESSARY SALE OF MY GOUACHE”
A 1p typed letter in French boldly signed by Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) as “Kandinsky” at center. Kandinsky has also made nine pen inscriptions by hand, consisting of French accent marks and typographical corrections to the typed text. Written at Kandinsky’s home in Dessau, Germany on April 23, 1932 on a single sheet of typing paper with “Kandsinsky / Dessau, Stresemann-Allee 6 / Tel. 1562″ letterhead. Expected wear including paper folds, light even toning, and isolated foxing along the horizontal fold, else near fine. 8.25″ x 11.25.” Accompanied by an English translation. Provenance: Ex-Noel Goldblatt (ca. 1926-2003) of the famous Goldblatt’s Department Store, to a prominent Los Angeles, California collector.
Wassily Kandinsky wrote this letter to André de Ridder (1888-1961), the Belgian art critic. In April 1932, Kandinsky was still teaching at Bauhaus (1919-1933), the prestigious but short-lived school of modern art and architecture, at its Dessau campus in eastern Germany. The Nazis forced the closure of Bauhaus just a year later, in April 1933, despite the school’s international reputation for cultivating cutting-edge artists, designers, and architects.
Kandinsky wrote, translated in full:
“Dear Monsieur de Ridder,
It gave me pleasure to hear from M. Grohmann that your intention to publish one of your cahiers [notebooks] with my drawings still exists and that you [only] posed the question because of the announcement of this cahier.
As for me, I am sure that the necessary sale of my gouache will have taken place earlier or later and that one risks no danger whatsoever in announcing the [imminent publication of the] notebook. It is always good to awaken public interest as early as possible.
I will give you afterwards – when the cahier will have been prepared for the printer – the addresses in Germany and in America in order to help with sales. The cahiers are not expensive and even despite the difficult situation in all countries I believe with reason in favorable sales.
It will give me extreme pleasure to count myself among the artists published under your direction.
Be assured, dear Monsieur de Ridder, of the expression of my cordial sentiments.
Kandinsky.”
André de Ridder and fellow Belgian art critic Paul-Gustave Van Hecke (1887-1967) were the co-founders and editors-in-chief of a niche French-language arts journal published out of Brussels called “Sélection – Cahier: Chronique de la vie artistique” [trans: “Selection – Notebook: Chronicle of the Artistic Life.”] (1920-1933). The pair launched the periodical in 1920 in conjunction with the opening of an exclusive art gallery. After 1927, the magazine published more infrequently, featuring longer articles dedicated to fewer artists. “Sélection – Cahier” did indeed feature the artwork of Wassily Kandinsky in one of their publications; a tribute to Kandinsky appeared in issue no. 14 in July 1933. De Ridder and Van Hecke’s periodical did much to popularize emerging European art movements such as Expressionism, Dadaism, Surrealism, and Cubism.
In the letter, Kandinsky refers to “M. Grohmann.” This was Will Grohmann (1887-1968), the German art critic who championed the modern aesthetic. The author of numerous reviews and articles, Grohmann had published a monograph on Kandinsky published by Éditions, Cahiers d’Art in 1930
This very relevant letter comes with an original of the July 14, 1933 publication illustrating Kandinsky’s art as referenced in our letter.
