Wassily Kandinsky
1866-1944

Russian painter and art theorist. One of the most famous 20th-century artists, he is credited with painting the first modern abstract works.

Kandinsky was born in Moscow but spent his childhood in Odessa. He enrolled at the University of Moscow and chose law and economics. Although quite successful in his profession—he was offered a professorship (chair of Roman Law) at the University of Dorpat—he started painting studies (life-drawing, sketching and anatomy) at the age of 30.

In 1896 he settled in Munich and studied at the Acadey of Fine Arts, Munich. He went back to Moscow in 1914 after World War I started. Being in conflict with official theories on art, he returned to Germany in 1921. There he was a teacher at the Bauhaus from 1922 until it was closed by the Nazis in 1933. At that time he moved to France where he lived the rest of his life, becoming a French citizen in 1939. He died at Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1944.