One of the pioneers of abstract modern art, Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), who spent most of his life between Munich and Paris and died in 1944 as a French citizen, exploited the evocative interrelation between colour and form to create an aesthetic experience that engaged the sight, sound, and emotions of the public. In her illustrated lecture Dr Natalia Murray will discuss the revolutionary role of Wassily Kandinsky in the birth of abstract art and the radical shift he initiated in early 20th-century art. Moving beyond representation, Kandinsky sought to express inner emotion, spirituality and the unseen forces of the human experience through colour, line, and form. Through close analysis of selected paintings, Dr Murray will trace Kandinsky’s evolution from expressive landscapes to fully non-objective compositions, enabling us to appreciate – by reference to those paintings – Kandinsky’s theory of colour symbolism, compositional rhythm and the spiritual dimension of abstraction.
Dr Natalia Murray was awarded a BA and MA in art history by the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, and a Ph.D by The Courtauld Institute of Art. She is a writer, lecturer and curator specialising in late 19th and early 20th-century Russian and Western European art and was the guest curator of the Royal Academy’s major exhibition Revolution. Russian Art 1917-1932 (2017).
Natalia is currently working on several new exhibition projects in the US and in Europe, while also teaching as a Lecturer in Modern Art and Curating at The Courtauld Institute of Art. She has published widely. Her most recent book, Two Women Patrons of the Russian Avant-Garde. Nadezhda Dobychina and Klavdia Mikhailova (Unicorn Publishing Group, 2021), was written together with Natalia Budanova and dedicated to the first gallery-owners in Russia.