Kandinsky books to enjoy

Are you looking for some excellent additions to your 2016 reading list?

Recently, I have shared with students in my abstract art class a children's book about Kandinsky. 

The first book, The Noisy Paint Box was written by Barb Rosenstock and illustrated by Mary Grandpre.

The book deftly explains Kandinsky's gift of synaesthesia; he could hear colors and see sounds.  Readers young and old will enjoy the imaginative drawings in this book.  Be sure to share this book with the budding artist in your life.

The backdrop of the beginning of the book is architecture of society of Russian aristocracy.  Kandinsky came from a well-to-do family.  However, his family lost everything during the course of civil revolutions and the first World War.  

Despite his relative poverty, Kandinsky always dressed like a well-heeled gentleman as he painted for his classes at the Bauhaus School.  His students described him as genteel and mannerly -- almost other-wordly.

The Noisy Paint Box does not cover the privations Kandinsky endured in later life.  But The Bauhaus Group:  Six Masters of Modernism does.  In this work, Nicholas Fox Weber explores the collegial relationships among teaching artists who lived and worked at this ground-breaking art school in Germany.

As the world plunged into yet another war, the School shuttered its doors.  (In fact, the SS shut it down.)

To learn more about Kandinsky's biographical timeline and this book in particular, please read more here.

I hope your 2016 reading adventures add resonance, richness, and vibrant color to your life.  Please feel free to contact me with any reading suggestions about modern artists.