Kandinsky notes get English debut

Kandinsky was one of the most important figures in abstract art

Letters from Russian-born 19th Century artist Wassily Kandinsky to two of his patrons are to be published in English for the first time later this year.

The artist corresponded with Sir Michael Ernest Sadler, an art collector and vice-chancellor of Leeds University as well as Mr Sadler's son Michael.

The younger Michael translated Kandinsky's seminal modernist book, Concerning the Spiritual in Art.

The letters will appear in a new edition of the book.

The publication coincides with an exhibition of more than 55 of Kandinsky's paintings at the Tate Modern in London.

Kandinsky: The Path to Abstraction: 1908 - 1922, will run from 22 June to 1 October.

Political

The collection of correspondence includes letters, poems and telegrams.

One letter to Sir Michael in 1936 shows Kandinsky was hurt at being ostracised from the German art world because Hitler and the Nazis found his work offensive.

"All my pictures have been taken down in German museums, with the exception of the museum in Halle/Saale where everything remains untouched," he wrote.

"Unfortunately people today are so taken up with politics that there is neither time or space for poor art.

"I am glad however that England is at least showing a lot of interest in new art."

The collection was purchased by the Tate in 1982 and has been catalogued by curator Adrian Glew.

Kandinsky was born in Moscow in 1866 and became a lecturer before moving to Munich to study art and began exhibiting in 1902.

His first solo show went on display in Berlin in 1912.

He began teaching at the Bauhaus in Weimar in 1922 and became a German citizen in 1928 but the Nazi government closed the Bauhaus in 1933.

The abstract artist spent his final days in Neuilly-sur-Seine, near Paris, and received French citizenship. He died in 1944.