Nina Kandinsky

Nina Nikolaevna Andreevskaya was the daughter of a Russian official. In 1916, when she met Wassily Kandinsky, she was living with her widowed mother and sister and working at the Visual Arts Section (IZQ) in the People's Commissariat for Enlightenment (NARKOMPROS) in Moscow.{{cite book |date=1982 |last=Röthel |first=Hans Konrad |title=Kandinsky |publisher=Cornell University Press |location=Ithaca, USA |page=42 |ISBN= 0801414784}}

Nina met the Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky in May 1916. He had just ended a relationship with German artist Gabriele Münter.{{cite book |date=2014 |last1=Lampe |first1=Angela |last2= Roberts |first2= Brady |title=Kandinsky: A Retrospective |publisher=Centre Pompidou |location=Paris, France |page=70 |ISBN= 9780300206630}} Nina and Wassily had previously spoken on the phone and Wassily, inspired by her voice, painted En Hommage a Une Voix Inconnue (In Tribute to an Unknown Voice).{{cite news |date=1978-10-06 |work=International Herald Tribune |author=Mary Blume |title=Dotting Kandinsky's Is |url= https://archive.org/details/InternationalHeraldTribune1978FranceEnglish/Oct%2006%201978%2C%20International%20Herald%20Tribune%2C%20%2329752%2C%20France%20%28en%29/page/n15/mode/2up?q=%22Nina+Kandinsky%22 |page=16 |location=Paris, France }} They met for the first time at the Pushkin Museum{{cite news |date=1970-01-05 |work=The Albuquerque Tribune |author=Grace Glueck |title=Famed European Artists' widows in New York to view exhibitions |url= https://www.newspapers.com/image/783462789/?match=1&terms=%22Nina%20Kandinsky%22 |page=10 |location=Albuquerque, USA }} and married in Moscow six months later, on 11 February 1917, travelling to Finland for their honeymoon.{{cite book |date=1992 |last1=Barnett |first1=Vivian Endicott |last2=Zweite |first2=Armin |title=Kandinsky: Watercolors and drawings |publisher=Prestel |location=New York, USA |page=230 |ISBN= 3791311840}} They spent the summer in a dacha in Achtyrka{{cite book |date=2014 |last1=Lampe |first1=Angela |last2= Roberts |first2= Brady |title=Kandinsky: A Retrospective |publisher=Centre Pompidou |location=Paris, France |page=71 |ISBN= 9780300206630}} and "were hardly apart for a single day" after that.{{cite book |date=2009 |last=Barnett |first=Vivian Endicott |title=Kandinsky |publisher=New York Guggenheim Museum |location=New York, USA |page=12 |ISBN= 9780892073900}} Their only son, Vsevolod Vasilevich, was born in September 1917.{{cite book |date=2014 |last1=Lampe |first1=Angela |last2= Roberts |first2= Brady |title=Kandinsky: A Retrospective |publisher=Centre Pompidou |location=Paris, France |page=82 |ISBN= 9780300206630}}

File: Wassily Kandinsky Nina Kandinsky Akhtyrka 1917.jpg{{cite book |date=2014 |last1=Lampe |first1=Angela |last2= Roberts |first2= Brady |title=Kandinsky: A Retrospective |publisher=Centre Pompidou |location=Paris, France |page=73 |ISBN= 9780300206630}}

After the 1917 October Revolution, Nina wrote in her diary about how their life in Moscow had become "unbearable" and that they "endured cold, hunger, and extreme hardship for years."{{cite book |date=2009 |last=Barnett |first=Vivian Endicott |title=Kandinsky |publisher=New York Guggenheim Museum |location=New York, USA |page=65 |ISBN= 9780892073900}} The son died of a virus in June 1920.

In December 1921 Nina accompanied Wassily to visit Walter Gropius and the Bauhaus in Berlin. Wassily was invited to teach there in March 1922{{cite book |date=1988 |last=Tío Bellído |first=Ramón |title=Kandinsky |publisher=Bracken |location=London, UK |page=32 |ISBN= 9781851701476}} and they moved to Motzstraße, Berlin{{cite book |date=2009 |last=Barnett |first=Vivian Endicott |title=Kandinsky |publisher=New York Guggenheim Museum |location=New York, USA |page=36 |ISBN= 9780892073900}} where he started teaching that July.{{cite book |date=2014 |last1=Lampe |first1=Angela |last2= Roberts |first2= Brady |title=Kandinsky: A Retrospective |publisher=Centre Pompidou |location=Paris, France |page=99 |ISBN= 9780300206630}}

From 1922 onwards Nina began cataloguing the watercolours and oil paintings Wassily exhibited, including prices and other sale details.{{cite book |date=1992 |last1=Barnett |first1=Vivian Endicott |last2=Zweite |first2=Armin |title=Kandinsky: Watercolors and drawings |publisher=Prestel |location=New York, USA |page=37 |ISBN= 3791311840}} Around the same time, she arranged for Jean Leppien, a student of Kandinsky's, to translate Kandinsky's writing into French.{{cite book |date=2006 |last=Bénézit |first=Emmanuel |title=Dictionary of Artists |publisher=Gründ |location=Paris, France |page=865 |ISBN= 2700030702}}

In June 1926 they moved to a new house, where their neighbours were Paul and Lily Klee. {{cite book |date=2009 |last=Barnett |first=Vivian Endicott |title=Kandinsky |publisher=New York Guggenheim Museum |location=New York, USA |page=74 |ISBN= 9780307268365}} Nina would remain in touch with Lily after the Kandinskys moved to Paris in 1933, the pair writing to each other of "domestic problems, financial difficulties, and their fears of war."{{cite book |date=1987 |last=Lanchner |first=Carolyn |title=Paul Klee |publisher=Little , Brown |location=New York, USA |page=98 |ISBN= 0870704044}} In 1928 the Kandinskys obtained German citizenship.{{cite book |date=2014 |last1=Lampe |first1=Angela |last2= Roberts |first2= Brady |title=Kandinsky: A Retrospective |publisher=Centre Pompidou |location=Paris, France |page=119 |ISBN= 9780300206630}} Nina photographed the "famous first meeting between Kandinsky, Rebay and the Guggenheims" at Bauhaus Dessau in 1930.{{cite book |date=2005 |last=Krens |first=Thomas |title=Art of Tomorrow: Hilla Rebay and Solomon R Guggenheim |publisher=Guggenheim Museum |location=New York, USA |page=94 |ISBN= 0892073276}}

Wassily gave Nina the following paintings as gifts :

File:Kandinsky - (Sans titre) Titre attribué A Nina pour Noel, 1926.jpg|Nina (for Christmas) (1926) {{cite book |date=1983 |last=Messer |first=Thomas |title=Kandinsky: Russian and Bauhaus years 1915-1933 |publisher=Solomon R Guggenheim Museum |location=New York, USA |page=63 |ISBN= 9780892070442}}

File: Vassily Kandinsky, 1926 - Accent rose.jpg|Accent in Pink (1930) for her birthday present{{cite book |date=2014 |last1=Lampe |first1=Angela |last2= Roberts |first2= Brady |title=Kandinsky: A Retrospective |publisher=Centre Pompidou |location=Paris, France |page=146 |ISBN= 9780300206630}}

File: Colorful Ensemble.jpg|Colourful Ensemble (1938) as an Easter present.{{cite book |date=2014 |last1=Lampe |first1=Angela |last2= Roberts |first2= Brady |title=Kandinsky: A Retrospective |publisher=Centre Pompidou |location=Paris, France |page=160 |ISBN= 9780300206630}}

When the Bauhaus was closed by the Nazis in 1933, the Kandinskys were "compelled to leave". They travelled to Paris where Marcel Duchamp suggested they stay at Neuilly-sur-Seine. They hoped that they might return to Germany, but after a year they settled in France and never returned to Germany.{{cite book |date=1997 |last=Barron |first=Stephanie |title=Exiles + Emigres: The Flight of European artists from Hitler |publisher=H N Abrams |location=Los Angeles, USA |page=181 |ISBN= 0810932717}} This was where Wassily died in 1944.{{cite book |date=2014 |last1=Lampe |first1=Angela |last2= Roberts |first2= Brady |title=Kandinsky: A Retrospective |publisher=Centre Pompidou |location=Paris, France |page=181 |ISBN= 9780300206630}}

In 1938 there was a major retrospective of Wassily's work at the Guggenheim, New York which was "meticulously planned by Kandinsky and his wife".{{cite book |date=2002 |last=Gill |first=Anton |title=Art Lover: A biography of Peggy Guggenheim |publisher=Harper Collins |location=New York, USA |page=186 |ISBN= 9780060196974}} The art collector Peggy Guggenheim "did not get along with the proprietary and businesslike Nina."

Having sought French citizenship since 1934, the Kandinskys were granted it in July 1939. Their German passports had expired and weren't renewed. In 1941 the American journalist Varian Fry arranged for the Kandinskys to obtain a visa for America, but they decided to stay in France.{{cite book |date=1992 |last1=Barnett |first1=Vivian Endicott |last2=Zweite |first2=Armin |title=Kandinsky: Watercolors and drawings |publisher=Prestel |location=New York, USA |page=54 |ISBN= 3791311840}}

After Wassily died in 1944, Nina remained in their Neuilly-sur-Paris home, changing "as little as possible" until her death 36 years later. Wassily's studio remained at he left it in 1944.

The couple had lived a fairly frugal life, but after Wassily's death, as the value of his work increased significantly, Nina was able to indulge an interest in fine jewellery. She would hold a tea party every New Year's Day to which Yvan Le Tourneur of Van Cleef & Arpels was always invited, so she could "admire and select the jewellery she would buy that year." She had a particular passion for emeralds. In the 1970s she had a chalet built in Gstaad, Switzerland which she called "Chalet Esmerelda".{{cite book |date=1987 |last=Raulet |first=Sylvie |title=Van Cleef and Arpels |publisher=Rizzoli |location=New York, USA |page=40 |ISBN= 0847807541}}{{cite news |date=1980-09-05 |work=Detroit Free Press |author= |title=Nina Kandinsky |url= https://www.newspapers.com/image/98503514/?match=1&terms=%22Nina%20Kandinsky%22 |page=20 |location=Detroit, USA }}

She received seven decorations from the French government, including the Legion d'Honneur.

Nina was attacked and murdered in her chalet on 2 September 1980. Her body was found by Klee's son, Felix and Tut Schlemmer. She had been strangled. The suspected motive was robbery. US$2 million worth of jewellery, including a $930,000 Cartier necklace that she had recently purchased, was taken, but no artwork. There was a continent-wide search for the killer, but nobody was ever charged with the crime.{{cite news |date=1980-09-05 |work=The Herald-Sun |author=

|title=Police hunt slayer |url= https://www.newspapers.com/image/787801454/?match=1&terms=%22Nina%20Kandinsky%22 |page=31 |location=North Carolina, USA }} Fourteen people attended her funeral in Paris. {{cite magazine |date=February 1995 |author=John Richardson |title=Kandinsky's Merry Widow |magazine=Vanity Fair |location=New York, USA |publisher=Condé Nast |page=128}} Chalet Esmerelda was sold for US$1.14 million in 1983, and the proceeds were donated to the French state.{{cite news |date=1983-08-25 |work=News and Record |author=

|title=Chalet Esmerelda sold for $1.14 million |url= https://www.newspapers.com/image/942579882/?match=1&terms=%22Nina%20Kandinsky%22 |page=54 |location=North Carolina, USA }}

Of the role of artist's widow, she said, "The artist's widow is the guardian and administrator. She is courted, loved, coveted, detested, flattered and harassed. She is accused of being difficult, vain, arrogant, capricious, unsociable, jealous, despotic, avaricious and egocentric."

Three months after Wassily died, his having "never enjoyed the recognition he craved", Nina "took matters in hand"{{cite book |date=2010 |last=Cohen-Solal |first=Annie |title=Leo and his circle: the life of Leo Castelli |publisher=Alfred A Knopf |location=New York, USA |page=180 |ISBN= 9781400044276}} and contacted René Drouin, the owner of one of the few galleries that stayed open during the Occupation. She sent him "twelve canvases and three oil paintings on cardboard for a retrospective", repeating this three further times over the next three years.

The New York-based banker-turned-art-dealer Karl Nierendorf took on a large consignment of Wassily's works from Nina in the 1940s. When he died in 1947 the pieces were passed on to Leo Castelli for whom at that point "everything was going very badly. No money, nothing." The "windfall" of Kandinsky's works meant that Castelli's business could thrive.{{cite book |date=2009 |last=Winkleman |first=Edward |title=How to start and run a commercial art gallery |publisher=Allworth Press |location=New York, USA |page=7 |ISBN= 9781581156645}} However, he "expended a lot of energy coping with the very difficult widow" and developed the opinion that "sometimes dealing with living artists is easier than dealing with dead ones, particularly if a difficult widow is part of the negotiations."{{cite book |date=2017 |last=Hook |first=Philip |title=Rogue's Gallery – the rise (and occasional fall) of art dealers, the hidden players in the history of art |publisher=The Experiment |location=New York, USA |page=258|ISBN= 9781615194162}} When Sonia Delaunay was considering what to do about her own husband's legacy, even though she never liked Nina, "had to admit [she] was effective in organising shows everywhere." {{cite book |date=1989 |last=Madsen |first=Axel |title=Sonia Delaunay: artist of the lost generation |publisher=McGraw Hill |location=New York, USA |page=301 |ISBN= 0070394571}}

In 1946 Nina provided "moral support" in establishing the Prix Kandinsky{{cite book |date=1977 |last=Rotzler |first=Willy |title=Constructive concepts; a history of constructive art from Cubism to the present |publisher=ABC Edition |location=Zurich, Switzerland |page=144 |ISBN= 9783855040377}} to "aid young artists working in the abstract mode". It was first awarded to Jean Dewasne and was awarded annually until 1957.{{cite web |url=https://lorenzelliarte.com/en/artists/44-jean-dewasne/biography/ |title=Jean Dewasne |author= |website= lorenzelliarte.com |access-date=2025-03-08}}{{cite web |url=https://www.artist-info.com/users/publicpagenonprofit/19126 |title=Prix Kandinsky |author= |website= artist-info.com |access-date=2025-03-08}}

In 1947 Nina authorised a new version of Wassily's 1910 essay Uber das Geistige in der Kunst (The Art of Spiritual Harmony) called Concerning the Spiritual in Art, to which she added her own essay.{{cite book |date=1979 |last=Osbourne |first=Harold |title=Abstraction and Artifice in twentieth-century art |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford, UK |page=101 |ISBN= 0198173598}}

In the 1960s Nina gave licence for a London-based jeweller to create jewellery pieces based on Wassily's art.{{cite news |date=2014-05-23 |work=Evening Standard |author= |title=Yes you Kandinsky |url= https://www.newspapers.com/image/713925353/?match=1&terms=%22Nina%20Kandinsky%22 |page=19 |location=London, UK }}

In 1962 Nina objected to the publication of a book by Lothar-Günther Buchheim, Der Blaue Reiter und die "Neue Künstervereinigung Münster" because of its reference to Wassily's earlier relationship with Münther. The objection was ultimately unsuccessful, and the book was published. {{cite journal |last=Lynton |first=Norbert |date= 1 May 1962 |title=Die Blaue Reiter und die Neue Künstlervereinigung München |journal=The Burlington Magazine |volume=104 |issue=710 |pages=219}}

Nina would loan pieces from her collection to exhibitions, including to the San Francisco Museum of Art in 1952,{{cite news |date=1952-07-14 |work=San rafael Independent Journal |author= |title=Kandinsky Exhibit at S.F. Art Museum |url= https://archive.org/details/san-rafael-daily-independent-journal-1952-07-14/page/n3/mode/2up?q=%22Nina+Kandinsky%22 |page=3 |location=San Rafael, USA }} the Steinburg Gallery, Washington Museum (1963) {{cite news |date=1963-12-29 |work=St Louis Post-Dispatch |author= |title=Wassily Kandinsky in Retrospect |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/142102137/?match=1&terms=%22Nina%20Kandinsky%22 |page=21 |location=St Louis, USA }} and the Museum of Modern Art in 1969.{{cite news |date=1969-11-01 |work=The Ithaca Journal |author= |title=Watercolors on Exhibit |url= https://www.newspapers.com/image/255189715/?match=1&terms=%22Nina%20Kandinsky%22 |page=3 |location=New York, USA }} She was a "major lender" of works for a 1963 retrospective of Kandinsky's work at the Guggenheim, and played an "important role in negotiations in Moscow to make possible the unprecedented loan to the Guggenheim of 7 important Kandinsky works from Russian museum collections." This was the first loan by the Russian government to an American museum since before WWII.

File: Кандинский Импровизация 3.jpg

Nina was friends with Georges and Claude Pompidou. Unlike the families of other artists such as Henri Laurens and George Rouault, she was an early supporter of the Centre Pompidou. While others protested against both the location of the building and its design, Nina made a donation of 15 paintings and 15 watercolours – including Improvisation III (1909) and Mit b (1912) {{cite book |date=2001 |last=Lageira |first=Jacinto |title=Centre Pompidou: the National Museum of Modern Art: Paintings and Sculptures |publisher=Scala |location=Paris, France |page=12 |ISBN= 9780892073900}} - to the centre in 1976,{{cite book |date=2009 |last=Barnett |first=Vivian Endicott |title=Kandinsky |publisher=New York Guggenheim Museum |location=New York, USA |page=7 |ISBN= 9782866562786}} becoming its single biggest benefactor up until that point. This donation encouraged others to donate works, including those by Constantin Brâncuşi, Max Ernst, Joan Miro and Antoine Pevsner.{{cite book |date=1998 |last=Blistene |first=Bernard |title=Rendevous: Masterpieces from the Centre George Pompidou and the Guggenheim Museum |publisher=New York Guggenheim Museum Publications |location=New York, USA |page=32 |ISBN= 0810969165}}{{cite book |date=2001 |last=Mindlin |first=Alexander F |title=Let's Go: France 2001 |publisher=t Martin's Press |location=New York, USA |page=142 |ISBN= 9780312246747}}

In the same year Nina published Wassily und ich: Mein leben mit einem großen Künstler. Her intention of the book was to "dot the i's, because critics often don't do their research."

In 1977 she was a guest of honour at the 40th anniversary of the Solomon R Guggenheim Foundation.{{cite book |date=1984 |last=Barnett |first=Vivian Endicott |title=100 works by modern masters from the Guggenheim Museum |publisher=H N Abrams |location=New York, USA |page=6 |ISBN= 0810903709}}

She would keep a "sharp eye" on exhibitions of Wassily's work and would also authenticate his work, saying in 1978 "So many fakes – I saw 20 last year." Regarding this process of authentication, the American gallery owner Richard L. Feigen described needing to have a Kandinsky work authenticated by Nina. He wrote "As I walked over to her with the painting in my hand, from a slight distance she said "That's a Kandinsky of 1904." But when she read the inscription [Münter 06 – possibly a dedication to his former partner], she said "This is not a Kandinsky." According to Nina, no Kandinsky ever owned by Münter was a Kandinsky."{{cite book |date=2000 |last=Feigen |first=Richard |title=Tales from the crypt: the painters, the museums, the curators, the collectors, the auctions, the art |publisher=A A Knopf |location=New York, USA |page=183 |ISBN= 9780394571690}}

In 1979 she founded the Société Kandinsky, based at the Centre Pompidou, "to protect and promote the artist's oeuvre".{{cite book |date=2009 |last=Barnett |first=Vivian Endicott |title=Kandinsky |publisher=New York Guggenheim Museum |location=New York, USA |page=13 |ISBN= 9780892073900}} In January 1980 she donated everything of Wassily's work that remained in her possession to the Centre.{{cite book |date=1998 |last=Blistene |first=Bernard |title=Rendevous: Masterpieces from the Centre George Pompidou and the Guggenheim Museum |publisher=New York Guggenheim Museum Publications |location=New York, USA |page=103 |ISBN= 0810969165}}{{cite book |date=2001 |last=Price |first=Renée |title=New Worlds : German and Austrian Art 1890 – 1940 |publisher=Neue Gallerie, Museum for German and Austrian Art |location=New York, USA |page= 235 |ISBN= 0300094469}}

• Concerning the spiritual in art (1942) - essay{{cite book |date=1969 |last=Spencer |first=Harold |title=Readings in art history: Vol 2 The renaissance to the present |publisher=Scribner |location=New York, USA |page=324
• Special Loan of Paintings from the USSR (1963) Pub. Solomon R Guggenheim Museum – essay
• Kandinsky, Nina Kandinsky: Aquarelle und Zeichnungen (1972) Pub. Galerie Beyeler
• Kandinsky, Nina Wassily und ich: Mein leben mit einem großen Künstler (1976) Pub. Droemer Knaur {{ISBN| 9783426722268}}

In total Nina gave the Pompidou Centre 113 oil paintings, 741 watercolours and drawings, "numerous works" by other artists (including unframed Klees) and a vast archive of papers. The 1983 exhibition Kandinsky: Russian and Bauhaus Years 1915–1933 at the Guggenheim Museum was dedicated to the memory of Nina.{{cite book |date=1983 |last=Messer |first=Thomas |title=Kandinsky: Russian and Bauhaus years 1915–1933 |publisher=Solomon R Guggenheim Museum |location=New York, USA |page=10 |ISBN= 9780892070442}}

• Richardson, John Kandinsky's Merry Widow (Feb 1995) Vanity Fair, p128

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Category:1980 deaths

Category:Deaths by strangulation

Category: People from Gstaad

Category: Women art collectors

Category:People from Neuilly-sur-Seine

Category: Jewellery collectors

Category: French people of Russian descent

Category: Soviet emigrants to France

Category: Soviet emigrants to Germany

Category:1899 births