Theme and Improvisation: Kandinsky & the American Avant-Garde, 1912-1950

Vassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) was a seminal figure in the art and thought of the twentieth century. His paintings and theories about art delved into spirituality and music, all the while providing the world with some of the earliest abstract images ever seen. In Europe, his influence has long been acknowledged through his tenure at the Bauhaus, his cofounding of the Blaue Reiter group, and his important writings. Only in recent years, however, has Kandinsky's enormous impact on American painting come to be recognized and studied. Theme & Improvisation is both a tribute to Kandinsky and an examination of the exquisite works of American art that demonstrate his influence.

While he never visited North America, by the time of his death and the traveling memorial exhibition of his works presented in the United States (1945), Kandinsky's work had become widely recognized and appreciated in America. This country's major introduction to the Russian's work had come through the 1913 Armory Show and by means of Alfred Stieglitz's 291 Gallery, which was devoted to the work of avant-garde artists. Subsequently, several artists who spent time in France and Germany were fortunate to get to know this master, seeing his work and discussing his theories firsthand, among them Marsden Hartley, Albert Bloch, and Konrad Cramer. But an even more persuasive argument for the extent of his influence is found in the work of those Americans who never met this innovator but nonetheless began to experiment with non-objective painting. Documentary evidence demonstrates how deeply influenced were such New York-based artists as Georgia O'Keeffe, Arthur Dove, and Ilya Bolotowsky as well as artists working far from Manhattan, including Emil Bisttram, Ed Garman, Raymond Jonson, and Agnes Pelton. An important final chapter explores the impact of Kandinsky's ideas and art on such Abstract Expressionists as Jackson Pollock, Arshile Gorky, and Hans Hofmann.

Resulting from a groundbreaking, four-venue exhibition, Theme & Improvisation features exquisite color reproductions of works from Kandinsky's abstract oeuvre as well as of works by thirty-eight remarkable American artists - some world-renowned, others less well known. Based on important new research into the art of the American avant-garde, and illustrated with many beautiful, often revelatory works of art, this book points the way to a new interpretation of the art of the first half of the twentieth century.