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Vasily Kandinsky Panel for Edwin R. Campbell No. 2 1914

  • Not on view

This series of four canvases was commissioned by Edwin R. Campbell, founder of Chevrolet Motor Company, for the entrance foyer of his Park Avenue apartment. In 1913, Kandinsky coined the expression "nonobjective painting" to refer to painting that depicted no recognizable objects. Although preliminary studies for one of these paintings suggest that Kandinsky had a landscape in mind when he conceived it, he ultimately envisioned these works as free of descriptive devices. Kandinsky stressed the impact of color and its association with music, explaining that "color is a means of exerting direct influence upon the soul. Color is a keyboard. The eye is the hammer. The soul is the piano, with its many strings."

Gallery label from 2006.
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
64 1/8 x 48 3/8" (162.6 x 122.7 cm)
Credit
Nelson A. Rockefeller Fund (by exchange)
Object number
298.1983
Copyright
© 2024 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
Department
Painting and Sculpture

Installation views

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Provenance Research Project

This work is included in the Provenance Research Project, which investigates the ownership history of works in MoMA's collection.

(Same provenance as Panel no. 4)
(Willem Beffie, Amsterdam. Left in care of Beffie by Kandinsky with instructions to ship them to New York, 1914 – 1916)
Mr. and Mrs. Edwin R. Campbell, 1914 – 1929. (Commissioned in 1914, together with Painting Number 199, Painting Number 200, and Painting Number 201, as a mural ensemble for their New York apartment at 635 Park Avenue. First exhibited in Stockholm in February 1916, then shipped to New York in summer 1916, and installed in Campbell’s foyer in fall 1916, until 1921 when Edwin Campbell (1874-1929) divorced and moved.)
[Whereabouts unknown. 1929 – 1940]
Murray Hoffman, Palm Beach, Florida. 1940
James St. L. O’Toole, New York (dealer). Acquired Panels 2 and 4 from Hoffman, 1940 – 1941
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Purchased from O’Toole, 1941 – 1983
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Nelson A. Rockefeller Fund (by exchange), 1983

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