Krass und Mild (Dramatic and Mild), 1932 - Wassily KandinskyPersonal note from me: anytime you have the opportunity to see any of Kandinsky's work do so - as fabulous as it looks on the page it is even more impressive in person.
Dr. Arthur M. Sackler was one of America's foremost collectors, whose passion for objects transcended any one collecting category or time period, featuring outstanding examples of ancient art of many cultures, as well as European sculpture, furniture, and paintings from the Renaissance to the modern era. Dr. Sackler's passion for collecting was matched only by his generosity, gifting objects and endowing galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Princeton and Columbia Universities, the Smithsonian, and the Royal Academy in London, in addition to establishing museums at Harvard and Beijing Universities.
Sotheby's November sales of Impressionist and Modern Art will include eleven works from Dr. Sackler's collections. Among those to be presented in the Evening Sale on November 4th is a monumental work by Wassily Kandinsky, Krass und Mild (Dramatic and Mild), one of the greatest Bauhaus-period works to have appeared at auction in years. (est. $6/8 million). Painted in May 1932, during Kandinsky's final months at the Bauhaus, the canvas is a visual symphony of geometry and color. The provocative title for this picture, also known as Drastic and Mild, evokes the powerful forces at play during the era in which it was created. Kandinsky painted this work in the spring of 1932, only months before the National Socialists closed the Bauhaus headquarters in Dessau. Krass und Mild was purchased by Dr. Sackler in Sotheby's historic sale of Fifty Paintings by Wassily Kandinsky from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in 1964. The appearance of Krass und Mild on the market is particularly timely given the recent revival of interest in Kandinsky as a pivotal artist, evidenced by major shows in London, Paris and in New York this fall
