Vasiliy Kandinskiy

Vasily Vasilyevich Kandinsky (4 [16] December 1866, Moscow — 13 December 1944, Neuilly-sur-Seine, France) was a Russian painter, graphic artist, and art theorist, one of the founders of abstract art. He was one of the founders of the Der Blaue Reiter group and a teacher at the Bauhaus.

He was born in Moscow and received his primary musical and artistic education in Odessa, when his family moved there in 1871. His parents intended him to become a lawyer, and Vasily Vasilyevich graduated with distinction from the Faculty of Law of Moscow State University. In 1896, the famous University of Dorpat in Tartu offered him a professorship, but Kandinsky refused. Thus, for a number of reasons, at the age of 30 he decided to become an artist; this was influenced by an impressionist exhibition in Moscow in 1895 and Claude Monet’s painting Haystacks. In 1896 he moved to Munich, where he met German Expressionists. After the outbreak of World War I he returned to Moscow, but, disagreeing with the attitude toward art in Soviet Russia, he left for Germany again in 1921. After the Nazis closed the Bauhaus, he moved with his wife to France, and in 1939 he received French citizenship.

Kandinsky came from a family of Nerchinsk merchants, descendants of convicts. His great-grandmother was the Tungus princess Gantimurova, and his father was a representative of the ancient Transbaikal (Kyakhta) Kandinsky family, which traced its origin to the princes of the Mansi Kondinsky principality.

Vasily Kandinsky was born into the family of businessman Vasily Silvestrovich Kandinsky (1832–1926). As a child he traveled with his parents throughout Europe and Russia. In 1871 the family settled in Odessa; there the future artist completed gymnasium, and also received artistic and musical education. In 1885–1893 (with a break in 1889–1891) he studied at the Faculty of Law of Moscow University, where he worked at the chair of political economy and statistics under Professor A. I. Chuprov, studying economics and law. In 1889 he interrupted his studies because of ill health,