Josef Albers and Wassily Kandinsky : friends in exile : a decade of correspondence, 1929-1940

Author(s)

• Weber, Nicholas Fox
• Boissel, Jessica

Bibliographic Information

Josef Albers and Wassily Kandinsky : friends in exile : a decade of correspondence, 1929-1940

Nicholas Fox Weber, Jessica Boissel

Hudson Hills Press in association with the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation , Distributed in the United States and Canada by National Book Network , Distributed outside of North America by Antique Collectors' Culb, c2010

1st ed., English language

• : pbk

Other Title

Kandinsky-Albers : une correspondance des années trente = Ein Briefwechsel aus den dreissiger Jahnren

Note

Includes bibliographical references

Text in English and German

"This publication in German and in French was originally organized by Mme Jessica Boissel and published for the first time in 1998 under the title: Kandinsky-Albers: une correspondance des années trente/Ein Briefwechsel aus den dreissiger Jahnren in the collection Hors-série/Archives des Cahiers du Musée National d'art moderne."--T.p. verso

Description and Table of Contents

Description

In 1933 the seven remaining members of the Bauhaus faculty decided to close the school definitively rather than to comply with the terms proposed by the Third Reich. Exile was the only option for Josef Albers and Wassily Kandinsky, who from that point on were considered "undesirable" artists in Germany. The forty-six letters in this volume are an intimate exchange between two colleagues and friends in this period when the world as they knew it was coming apart. Yet it is more a celebration of the staying powers of art than a lament. Each wrote to the other of his continuous creative evolution, while at the same time providing rich impressions of his new world. For Kandinsky, it was France, where his wife Nina enjoyed the stylishness of Paris as he entered a new avant-garde milieu but also faced the resistance of a conservative society. For Albers and his wife Anni, it was the United States, as they came to know it at the recently founded Black Mountain College in North Carolina, as well as in the lively galleries and museums of New York. The letters between Kandinsky and Albers reveal the perpetual hunger for new adventures in painting, as well as the warmth and humour of two of the most pioneering, groundbreaking artists of the twentieth century. The different environments in which these two independent, original, and determined artists persevered are vividly brought to life. So are the two men's personalities. Whether content or anxious, Albers and Kandinsky both dropped their guard in these letters. The correspondence is unique in revealing the strength of these creative geniuses in coping with new and unexpected circumstances in life, and in elucidating the sustaining force of their artistic energies.

by "Nielsen BookData"

• NCID: BB17803452
• ISBN:
  • 9781555953270
• LCCN: 2009048142
• Country Code: us
• Title Language Code: eng
• Text Language Code: engger
• Original Language Code: freger
• Place of Publication: Manchester, Vt.,[S.l.],[S.l.]
• Pages/Volumes: 172 p.
• Size: 26 cm
• Classification:
  • LCC : N6888.A5
  • DC22 : 709.2
• Subject Headings:
  • LCSH : Albers, Josef -- Correspondence
  • LCSH : Artists -- Germany -- Correspondence
  • LCSH : Kandinsky, Wassily, 1866-1944 -- Correspondence
  • LCSH : Artists -- Russia (Federation) -- Correspondence