Wassily Kandinsky - Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Morning Session New York Wednesday, May 15, 2024 | Phillips

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  • “My interest has always been people.”
    —Inger Elliott

    Treasures from the Estate of Inger and Osborn Elliott

     

    Inger and Osborn Elliott cultivated an art collection worthy of praise. Their home served as a jewel box of taste, with brightly colored walls adorned with paintings, photographs, and drawings, all delicately and masterfully curated.  The couple's diverse collection reflects their devotion to New York City's cultural, intellectual, and civic spheres, while also spanning a global reach of artistic styles and techniques. Inger, originally from Norway, had a passion for photojournalism that brought her to Southeast Asia, where she documented the Vietnam War from a helicopter. She would later go on to found China Seas, a design firm specializing in batik textiles. Osborn, a revolutionary Newsweek editor and social advocate, went on to become the Dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Trailblazers in their own regard, the Elliotts amassed a collection including rare, early works by Willem de Kooning, Wassily Kandinsky, and Milton Avery, among those by many other innovative modern and post-war painters, photographers, and printmakers.
     

    Inger and Osborn Elliott.

    Inger and Oz's eye for style, together with a casual, chic approach to curation, set them apart from other collectors. It is their charisma that lives on through these artworks, proving that a distinct approach to collecting yields the finest quality. These artworks not only have excellent provenance, but also exhibit a unique rarity and quality,  remarkably contemporary despite their age. 

    “Kandinsky painted the view from the house they rented in via Montebello and also numerous scenes of the bay. In the Italian landscapes there is an emphasis on pastel colors and a greater freedom of execution...The bright light of Tunisia and Italy resulted in higher-keyed-tonalities in Kandinsky's pictures.”
    —Vivian Endicott Barnett 

    Wassily Kandinsky’s Rapallo-Stürmischer Tag, 1906, is a prime, representational example of Kandinsky’s expressive and spontaneous brushwork. Translating to Rapallo - Stormy Day, the present work depicts just that – brash waves whip against a rock in the lower left corner with an overcast sky signaling an incoming storm threatening the seaside homes in the distance. Formerly in the collection of the artist, Gabriele Münter, the present work is one of about eighteen small format canvases depicting the Italian seaside town of Rapallo, providing a rare glimpse into the artist’s life and career during the months spent there.


    Living with Münter, fellow artist and then-lover, in Rapallo from December 1905 to April 1906, Kandinsky painted the present work during a shift in his aesthetic when he became preoccupied with the surrounding landscape. Using his natural setting to inspire his painterly practice, the artist would depict Rapallo and the surrounding Riviera numerous times throughout this five-month period. The brushstrokes, likely created using his palette knife, are quick and short, as if the artist were standing by the shore just as the storm began to roll in. The paint is thickly applied and appears almost wet, again echoing the sea below and stormy sky above. Using a neutral color palette during this influential period, Kandinsky would turn towards a more vibrant palette in the non-figurative paintings following his time in Rapallo, making the present work a gem-like example of the artist’s early oeuvre.

    • Condition Report

    • Description

      View our Conditions of Sale.

    • Provenance

      Estate of Gabriele Münter
      Franz Resch, Gauting (after 1962)
      Georg Schäfer, Schweinfurt
      His sale, Christie, Manson & Woods Ltd., London, June 27, 1978, lot 3
      David and Lova Abrahamsen, New York (acquired at the above sale)
      Inger Elliott, New York (thence by descent from the above)
      Thence by descent to the present owner

    • Exhibited

      Munich, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Kandinsky and Gabriele Münter—Werke aus Fünf Jahrzehnten, February 19–April 30, 1957, no. 42
      New York, Leonard Hutton Galleries, Jawlensky & Major German Expressionists, October 17, 1980–January 1981, no. 16, pp. 36–37 (illustrated, p. 36)

    • Literature

      Hans K. Roethel and Jean K. Benjamin, Kandinsky, Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil-Paintings, Volume One, 1900–1915, London, 1982, no. 148, p. 160 (illustrated)

Property from the Estate of Inger and Osborn Elliott

113

Rapallo-Stürmischer Tag

oil on canvasboard
9 3/8 x 12 5/8 in. (23.8 x 32.1 cm)
Painted in 1906.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$120,000 - 180,000 

Place Advance Bid
Contact Specialist

Annie Dolan
NY Head of Auctions and Specialist, Head of Sale, Morning Session
212 940 1288
adolan@phillips.com

Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Morning Session

New York Auction 15 May 2024