The 24 Greatest Wassily Kandinsky Paintings

Color does most of the talking here, whether it's Bavarian village scenes, early abstractions that look like storms, or the tidy geometry of the Bauhaus years.

1. 1
   Composition VII

   Large 1913 abstract canvas, roughly two by three metres, held by the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.
   1000pts
2. 2
   Upward

   1929 Bauhaus-period canvas of a balanced linear figure, held by the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice.
   799pts
3. 3
   Composition IX

   1936 canvas of diagonal colour bands and small floating forms painted in Neuilly-sur-Seine, held by the Centre Pompidou.
   689pts
4. 4
   Dominant Curve

   1936 canvas organised around one sweeping curve, painted in Paris and held by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
   689pts
5. 5
   Composition X

   1939 canvas with bright forms on a black ground, the last of his ten Compositions, held by the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen.
   689pts
6. 6
   On White II

   1923 Bauhaus-era canvas of sharp black and coloured forms on a white ground, held by the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
   611pts
7. 7
   Riding Couple

   1906–07 oil of a couple on horseback before a domed Russian city, held by the Lenbachhaus in Munich.
   611pts
8. 8
   Several Circles

   1926 canvas of overlapping translucent circles on a dark ground, held by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
   517pts
9. 9
   Composition VI

   1913 abstract canvas developed from a deluge theme, held by the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.
   517pts
10. 10
    Black Lines

    December 1913 canvas of colour patches threaded with black lines, held by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
    517pts
11. 11
    Composition V

    1911 canvas whose rejection by the Munich New Artists' Association prompted Kandinsky and Franz Marc to break away and launch Der Blaue Reiter.
    517pts
12. 12
    Composition VIII

    Geometric 1923 canvas painted while Kandinsky taught at the Bauhaus in Weimar, held by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
    517pts
13. 13
    Composition IV

    1911 canvas in which lances, mountains and riders dissolve into colour fields, held by the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf.
    402pts
14. 14
    Improvisation 28

    1912 canvas, second version, mixing what may be cannons and boats with abstract colour, held by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
    402pts
15. 15
    In the Black Square

    1923 canvas of a tilted white plane holding geometric forms inside a black square, held by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
    402pts
16. 16
    Impression III (Concert)

    1911 canvas painted after Kandinsky heard Arnold Schoenberg's music in Munich in January 1911, held by the Lenbachhaus.
    402pts
17. 17
    Blue Mountain

    1908–09 canvas of riders before a blue peak, painted in his Murnau years and held by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
    402pts
18. 18
    Painting with White Border

    1913 canvas framed by a white edge, the subject of a written analysis by Kandinsky, held by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
    402pts
19. 19
    Colorful Life

    1907 tempera crowded with figures from Russian folk life, shown at the Lenbachhaus in Munich.
    0pts
20. 20
    Yellow-Red-Blue

    1925 canvas pairing a yellow rectangle with a large blue circle, painted at the Bauhaus and held by the Centre Pompidou.
    0pts
21. 21
    Succession

    1935 canvas of small biomorphic signs in rows, painted in Paris and held by the Phillips Collection in Washington.
    0pts
22. 22
    Sky Blue

    1940 canvas of small floating organic creatures on a blue field, held by the Centre Pompidou.
    0pts
23. 23
    The Blue Rider

    1903 painting of a cloaked rider crossing a meadow; it shares its name with the artists' group and almanac he co-founded.
    0pts
24. 24
    Murnau with Rainbow

    1909 landscape of the Bavarian market town of Murnau under a rainbow, held by the Lenbachhaus in Munich.
    0pts

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