Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) — A Retrospective Exhibition

This traveling retrospective exhibition about the Russian-born artist Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) opened in 1963, featuring 65 oil paintings and 30 watercolors dating from 1902 to 1943, the year before the artist’s death. Although the show was organized by the Guggenheim Museum, it also included works from the Pasadena Art Museum’s Blue Four Galka Scheyer Collection. The show spanned the entirety of Kandinsky’s career, from his early curvilinear works to his expressive abstractions painted before World War I and onto the geometric works of his later years. An illustrated catalogue accompanied the exhibition, with essays by Kenneth Lindsay, H. K. Röthel and Jean Cassou. After its display in Pasadena, the exhibition traveled to the San Francisco Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal; Toledo Museum of Art; Philadelphia Museum of Art; University Art Galleries, UCLA; Washington University; Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts; and Worcester Art Museum.