Early Kandinsky has become a focal point of the art market: several of his paintings are going up for auction this autumn. Collectors are drawn to works where the artist is still referencing recognizable subjects but is already experimenting with color and composition. For instance, the landscape «Summer Day. Noon» from 1898–1900 was featured in a Moscow auction with an estimated value of 90 million rubles.
Wassily Kandinsky. Colorful Life, 1907.
The painting «Colorful Life» (Das bunte Leben), created in 1907, was recently sold at the Christie’s London auction. The canvas unfolds an entire panorama: peasants, riders, and pilgrims resemble characters from folklore, coexisting against a landscape backdrop. The multitude of details and rich colors create the impression that several stories are unfolding before the viewer—none of which is meant to be central. Moreover, color here no longer simply describes objects; it sets the rhythm for the entire composition.
The final price of the canvas is £31.56 million, including commission and taxes. The work has a complicated history: it was acquired by the Amsterdam collectors Hedwig and Emanuel Levenshtein in 1927, and in the 1940s, after the German occupation of the Netherlands, the painting was sold without the family’s consent. In 2023, it was returned to the collectors' heirs, who then put the canvas up for auction.
