Kandinsky and the Harmony of Silence: Painting with White Border
Kandinsky and the Harmony of Silence: Painting with White Border
(June 11–September 4, 2011)
Kandinsky and the Harmony of Silence: Painting with White Border provides a fascinating, in-depth look at Wassily Kandinsky's creative process during the five months leading up to his 1913 masterpiece Painting with White Border (Moscow), now in the collection of The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. For the first time in the United States, this exhibition reunites the painting with Kandinsky's 1913 oil study Sketch 1 for Painting with White Border (Moscow), a major holding of The Phillips Collection, as well as ten other preparatory studies in watercolor, ink, and pencil.
The exhibition also highlights the results of an in-depth conservation study of the Phillips and Guggenheim paintings, including an infrared image that reveals another painting beneath the Phillips oil study.
Inspired by a visit to his native Moscow in 1912, Kandinsky sought in Painting with White Border to express his "extremely powerful impressions" of the city. His preparatory studies and the painting include veiled allusions to a troika, or three-horse sled (suggested in the painting by a three-lobed element at upper left) and to St. George and the dragon (two elements linked by a glowing white horizontal lance). Kandinsky ultimately resolved the composition by surrounding it with soft white space, the "white border" of the title. He refers to white as offering "the harmony of silence" in his seminal treatise On the Spiritual in Art (released in late 1911, with a publication date of 1912); its 2011 centennial inspired this exhibition.
During the Kandinsky exhibition, the Phillips also presents Stella Sounds: The Scarlatti K Series, contemporary works by American artist Frank Stella, a longtime admirer of Kandinsky's ideas. In keeping with the museum's concept of conversations between works of art, the two exhibitions—each one complete in itself—juxtapose two pioneers of abstract art, working a century and an ocean apart.
A richly illustrated, 136-page catalogue edited by Phillips curator Elsa Smithgall accompanies the exhibition and is available for sale in the Museum Shop.
Kandinsky and the Harmony of Silence: Painting with White Border is co-organized by The Phillips Collection and The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.
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The Phillips Collection's presentation and the exhibition catalogue are supported by the National Endowment for the Arts. |
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Wassily Kandinsky, Painting with White Border (Moscow), 1913. © 2011 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris.
©2012 The Phillips Collection.
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