Klein Welten (Small Worlds) IX
Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1964), Klein Welten (Small Worlds) IX, drypoint, 1922, signed lower right in pencil [also monogrammed in the plate]. Reference: Roethel 172, only state. From the edition of 200; from the portfolio Klein Welten. In good condition, tiny loss upper right margin corner, old glue verso upper margin corners. On a heavy wove paper, with full margins, 9 3/8 x 7 3/4, the sheet 11 3/4 x 10 1/2 inches. Archival mounting.
A fine clear impression.
Kandinsky joined the Bauhaus in 1922, the same year he published the Klein Welten portfolio, which was a survey of his progression from abstraction after nature, which he began shortly after the turn of the century, to more structured and constructivist abstraction. Klein Welten IX is a superb example of Kandinsky’s abstract constructivism, using the print medium. Planes intersect, rectangles and complex triangles move through space and through each other, things fall apart and cohere, and in the end the overall composition “works.”