The Waterfall, 1909

© 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris About the ArtistWassily Kandinsky (December 16 [O.S. December 4] 1866 ‚Äì December 13, 1944) was a Russian painter, printmaker and art theorist. One of the most famous 20th-century artists, he is credited with painting the first modern abstract works. Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa. As a young man he enrolled at the University of Moscow and chose to study law and economics. Quite successful in his profession‚Äîhe was offered a professorship (chair of Roman Law) at the University of Dorpat‚Äîhe started painting studies (life-drawing, sketching and anatomy) at the age of 30. In 1896 he settled in Munich and studied first in the private school of Anton A≈æbe and then at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich. He went back to Moscow in 1914 after World War I started. He was unsympathetic to the official theories on art in Moscow and returned to Germany in 1921. There he taught at the Bauhaus school of art