Kandinsky's Betonte Ecken Expected To Set $80 Million Record At Christie's

(MENAFN- USA Art News) Wassily Kandinsky's painting Betonte Ecken (1922–23), a colorful abstraction measuring just over four feet square, is set to go up for auction at Christie's New York on November 17. The work carries an estimate of $60 million to $80 million and is guaranteed to achieve a record-setting price, the auction house informed ARTnews.

Kandinsky's current auction record stands at $44.8 million, which was paid for his 1910 painting Murnau mit Kirche II (Murnau with Church II) at Sotheby's London in 2023. Just last month, Christie's London secured the artist's third-highest price when his 1907 canvas Das bunte Leben (La vie mélangée) sold for $41.5 million, exceeding its $30 million estimate. That artwork had recently been restituted to the heirs of a Jewish Dutch collecting family whose art was lost during the Nazi era.

The title Betonte Ecken translates as“Accentuated Corners.” Kandinsky painted this work in Weimar, Germany, while he was teaching at the legendary Bauhaus. The painting has a rich provenance, first appearing at auction at the Jacob Hecht Auction House in Berlin in 1926, from the Schwarz collection. It then went to Galerie Nierendorf in Berlin, which sold it, likely in 1929, to Hilla Rebay, an adviser to museum founder Solomon R. Guggenheim. Guggenheim later acquired the painting from Rebay, and it remained in the museum's collection until 1964, when the museum sold it at Sotheby's London to New York art dealer Stephen Hahn.

Hahn eventually sold the work to Boston collectors Sandra and David Bakalar, who consigned it to Sotheby's in 1986, where it was acquired by the current anonymous seller. Sotheby's did not immediately respond to ARTnews's inquiry regarding the prices the work fetched during its two prior appearances on the block. The artist's top 14 works at auction have all surpassed the $20 million mark, with 10 of these prices established in the last decade.

Music played a pivotal role in Kandinsky's artistic journey. He abandoned a career in law and economics for art after attending a performance of Richard Wagner's opera Lohengrin at Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre in 1896, at the age of 30.“In spirit I saw all my colors-they stood in front of my mind's eye,” he later recounted, as reported by the New York Times.“Wild, almost mad lines appeared before me. It became quite clear to me that painting could develop the same powers that music possessed.” This experience is central to the current exhibition“Kandinsky: La musique des couleurs” at the Philharmonie de Paris.

Born in Moscow in 1866, Kandinsky published the book On the Spiritual in Art in 1911 and was a member of the influential Blaue Reiter group. Following his first solo exhibition at Der Sturm gallery in Berlin in 1912, one of his works was featured in the groundbreaking 1913 Armory Show in New York. He lived in Russia from 1914 to 1921, primarily in Moscow, where he held a position at the People's Commissariat of Education, before moving to Weimar in 1922. His first New York solo exhibition took place in 1923, organized by the Société Anonyme, an organization founded in 1920 by Marcel Duchamp, Katherine Dreier, and Man Ray.

Kandinsky became a German citizen in 1928 but relocated to France when the Nazi government closed the Bauhaus in 1933, eventually becoming a French citizen in 1939. The Nazis confiscated dozens of his works during their campaign against“degenerate art.” Kandinsky died in France in December 1944, three days before his 78th birthday and six months before Germany's surrender to Allied forces.

We previously reported:

Piet Mondrian's Composition III and Wassily Kandinsky's Das bunte Leben will lead Christie's October 14 sale, while Sotheby's offers Roman sculptures.

A rare abstract painting by Hilma af Klint goes to auction at Bukowskis on November 19, estimated at $600,000 to $800,000.

Sotheby's London's contemporary art sale on Thursday brought in $61.1 million, led by a $12.9 million Willem de Kooning painting.

Source: ARTnews

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