The Best Places to see Wassily Kandinsky’s Paintings
Wassily Kandinsky, Composition IV (1911)
Wassily Kandinsky was one of the most influential painters of the 20th century. His artworks can be viewed in museums across the globe, from Moscow to New York.
From his early Munich works to breakthrough avant-garde pieces, Kandinsky had a huge influence on the concept of modern art. Over a prolific career, he created over 10,000 paintings, prints and drawings that had an enormous impact on the art world.
This article provides a guide to the best museums showcasing Kandinsky’s paintings, enabling you to discover his revolutionary body of work. It lists the premier museums and galleries across Europe, Russia, and the United States that are home to Kandinsky’s seminal abstract masterpieces.
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The Pioneering Art of Wassily Kandinsky
The Pioneering Art of Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) was a Russian painter and art theorist who became one of the most influential figures in modern abstract art.
He is renowned as one of the first artists to pioneer purely abstract paintings, completely removing recognisable figures and forms. Kandinsky transformed modern conceptions of art through his bold experimentation with colour, shape, and composition.
Born in Moscow, Kandinsky drew early inspiration from Russian folk art before moving to Munich in 1896. In Germany, he founded the avant-garde group known as The Blue Rider, advancing ideas about spirituality in art. This built up to his breakthrough in 1910, when Kandinsky created his first purely abstract painting devoid of real-world references.
Kandinsky believed painting should be like music - evoking emotion through colour and form alone, without needing representation. Kandinsky’s completely abstract compositions opened up radically new possibilities in painting. They gave artists freedom to explore the canvas in groundbreaking ways based purely on internal feeling.
His early abstract pieces had an enormous influence on numerous 20th century modern art movements, from the expressive colours of Fauvism to the conceptual ideas behind Cubism and Constructivism.
Kandinsky’s legacy continues to inspire contemporary artists today, and he remains one of the most important pioneers of modern art. Fore more information about his legacy, please read here.
Kandinsky in the United States
1. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, located on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, New York City, is a landmark 20th-century art museum designed by acclaimed architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Opened in 1959, the museum is instantly recognisable for its unique spiral ramp gallery that ascends gently around the building’s central atrium.
The museum’s collection is focused on modern and contemporary art, including important works by Wassily Kandinsky, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, and others.
Composition 8 (1923)
The museum holds over 100 works by Wassily Kandinsky in its permanent collection, spanning five decades of the artist’s career from 1908-1944. Kandinsky’s art at the Guggenheim includes paintings, drawings, and watercolours. Here are some of the notable Kandinsky artworks located at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum:
Composition 8 (1923)
Improvisation 28 (1912)
Yellow-Red-Blue (1925)
Black and Violet (1923)
Several Circles (1926)
2. Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York City
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is located in midtown Manhattan and is one of the most influential and largest museums of modern art in the world.
Established in 1929, MoMA’s vast collection contains over 200,000 works spanning the late 19th century to the present today. MoMA is home to iconic pieces from Vincent van Gogh’s “Starry Night” to Pablo Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d'Avignon”, and Salvador Dalí’s “The Persistence of Memory”.
Orange (1923)
MoMA also has an extensive Wassily Kandinsky collection, which includes:
Composition V (1911)
Picture with an Archer (1909)
Study for Painting with White Form (1913)
Improvisation (1914)
Orange (1923)
3. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is the largest art museum in California. Located on Wilshire Boulevard, LACMA’s collection contains over 150,000 works spanning the history of art. It has particularly strong collections of Asian, Latin American, and Islamic art.
Its Kandinsky collection includes:
Untitled Improvisation III (1914)
Three Free Circle (1923)
Semicircle (1927)
4. Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena
The Norton Simon Museum is known for its small but impressive collection of European masterpieces and Asian art. Located in Pasadena, the museum contains over 12,000 objects showcasing art from the Renaissance to the 20th century.
The museum building was once the estate of Norton Simon, an entrepreneur and art collector who acquired and displayed many of the works during his lifetime. After Simon’s death in 1993, the home was renovated into a modern museum that retains an intimate, residential feel in galleries surrounding a central courtyard.
Notable Kandinsky artworks at Norton Simon Museum include:
Small Worlds II (1922)
Open Green (1923)
Unequal (1932)
5. Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago
The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States.
Located in Chicago’s Grant Park, its collection of over 300,000 works spans 5,000 years of creativity across various cultures. Renowned for its Impressionist and Post-Impressionist masterpieces by artists like Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Vincent van Gogh as well as its holdings of iconic American artworks such as Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks”, the Art Institute also features excellent examples of photography, textiles, architecture, and decorative arts.
Painting with Troika (1909)
The Art Institute of Chicago has an impressive Kandinsky collection that includes:
Painting with Troika (1909)
Improvisation No. 30 (Cannons) (1913)
Landscape with Two Poplars (1912)
Painting with Green Center (1913)
Houses at Murnau (1909)
Kandinsky in Germany
6. The Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich
The Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus is an art museum in Munich, Germany renowned for its collection of 19th-century German paintings. Located in a historic villa, the museum’s holdings include major works by The Blue Rider group of Expressionist artists like Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and Franz Marc. Other highlights are paintings by Munich-based artists such as the Romanticist Franz von Lenbach and examples of Modernist art from the early 20th century onwards.
Squares with Concentric Circles (1913)
The Lenbachhaus has one of the most significant Kandinsky collections in the world, especially from his key periods between 1908-1914 (Blue Rider) and 1919-1933 (Bauhaus), with over 70 of his works represented from across his career. Here are some notable Kandinsky works in the collection:
Russian Knight (1902)
A Mountain (1909)
Improvisation 12 (Rider) (1910)
Squares with Concentric Circles (1913)
Red Spot II (1921)
7. Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf
The Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, also known as the K20 and K21, is a major art museum in Düsseldorf with an extensive collection of international modern art. The museum is housed in two interconnected buildings, the K20 featuring works from the early 20th century Classical Modernism and the K21 for contemporary art.
Highlights include masterworks from Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, and German Expressionists of the Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) groups. The museum also has excellent holdings in Surrealist and Pop Art as well as post-war abstraction.
Composition IV (1911)
Transverse Line (1923)
In Blue (1925)
Composition X (1939)
Kandinsky in France
8. Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris
The Musée National d’Art Moderne, located in the Centre Georges Pompidou, houses France’s national collection of modern and contemporary art. Its holdings include over 100,000 works ranging from 1905 to the present day, making it one of the largest modern art museums in the world.
With the Black Arch (1912)
Highlights include iconic works from Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dalí, Andy Warhol, and many other influential 20th century artists. The Musée National d'Art Moderne has one of the largest collections of works by Wassily Kandinsky. Some of the works in the collection include:
Improvisation 3 (1909)
With the Black Arch (1912)
Yellow-Red-Blue (1925)
Two Green Points (1935)
Composition (1936)
9. Musée d'Arts de Nantes
Address: Musée d'Arts de Nantes, 10 Rue Georges Clemenceau, 44000 Nantes, France
The Musée d'Arts de Nantes, (Fine Arts Museum of Nantes), located in the Loire Valley region of France, houses an excellent collection of fine art from the 13th to 21st centuries. Highlights include Gothic altarpieces, Renaissance masters like Sandro Botticelli and Pieter Bruegel, French artists such as Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Eugène Delacroix, and a strong selection of 20th century avant-garde works.
The Fine Arts Museum of Nantes has a collection of works by Kandinsky that includes:
Mild Process (1928)
Eight Times (1929)
Downwards (1929)
Three Rectangles (1930)
Green Emptyness (1930)
Kandinsky in Russia
10. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
The State Tretyakov Gallery located in Moscow is one of the world’s foremost museums of Russian art. Founded in 1856 by the merchant Pavel Tretyakov, the gallery traces the history of Russian art from the 10th century to the present day through over 180,000 works.
Major highlights include ancient Russian icons, expansive collections of paintings by renowned Russian artists like Ilya Repin, Vasily Surikov, and Viktor Vasnetsov, and extensive holdings of avant-garde art from the 20th century.
The Tretyakov has an outstanding collection of Kandinsky’s early Russian works as well as later Bauhaus pieces. Here are some of the key Kandinsky works on display at the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow:
Odessa Port (1898)
Farewell (1903)
Moonlight Night (1907)
Crinoline Lady (1909)
11. The Russian Museum, Saint Petersburg
The Russian Museum located in Saint Petersburg holds the world’s largest collection of Russian fine art. Founded in 1898, the museum traces the history of Russian visual arts from the 10th to the 20th century through over 400,000 exhibits.
Highlights include medieval icons, Catherine the Great’s art chamber, and comprehensive displays of Social Realism and Soviet Nonconformist Art.
The Kandinsky artworks in The Russian Museum’s collection include:
Summer Landscape (1909)
Murnau - Summer Landscape (1909
Improvisation 11 (1910)
Saint George (1911)
Black Spot (1912)
Kandinsky in The Netherlands
12. Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam is one of the Netherland’s preeminent museums of modern and contemporary art and design. Located near the Museum Square, the Stedelijk’s permanent collections comprise over 90,000 works highlighting major figures and movements from the early 20th century onwards, including De Stijl, Bauhaus, Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Minimalism, and Conceptual Art.
The Kandinsky collection includes:
The Bridge, 1902
Archer, 1908
Painting with Houses, 1909
Watercolour No. 6, 1911
Watercolour No. 2, 1911
13. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam
The Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is located in Rotterdam, Netherlands and houses an internationally acclaimed collection of art spanning old masters to contemporary works. Highlights include paintings by Dutch and Flemish artists like Rembrandt, Hieronymus Bosch, and Vincent van Gogh as well as major modern works by Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, and Pablo Picasso.
Their Kandinsky collection includes:
Sunday (Old Russian), (1904)
Lyrical (Lyrics), (1911)
Silent, (1924)
Kandinsky in Switzerland
14. Kunstmuseum Basel
The Kunstmuseum Basel is Switzerland’s oldest public art collection, spanning from the early 15th century to contemporary art. Its holdings include European decorative arts, drawings, prints, and photographs.
The Kunstmuseum Basel has the follwing Kandinsky artworks in its collection:
Improvisation 35 (1914)
Heavy Red (1924)
15. Bern Kunstmuseum
The Bern Kunstmuseum is an art museum located in Bern, Switzerland. The museum is especially known for its collections of Swiss painters such as Ferdinand Hodler and Paul Klee. It occupies several old buildings including the Kornhaus, built in 1577-78, which was an old granary. It’s Kandinsky collection includes:
Yellow Top, (1924)
Small Dream In Red, (1925)
Kandinsky in Spain
16. Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid
The Museo Reina Sofía is Spain’s national museum of 20th century art located in Madrid. Opened in 1992, its collection comprises over 31,000 works by major Spanish and international artists such as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró, Francis Bacon, and Louise Bourgeois.
The museum is best known for housing Pablo Picasso’s renowned anti-war painting “Guernica”.
Additional highlights include an extensive Surrealist collection and exhibitions dedicated to contemporary and cutting-edge art from around the world. Originally an 18th century hospital, the grand renovated building provides an ideal backdrop to view the Reina Sofía’s world-class modern and contemporary collection as well as excellent temporary exhibitions.
The Museo Reina Sofía also has the following Kandinsky paintings on display:
Untitled (1924)
Frei (Free) (1932)
17. Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
The Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza (Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum) in Madrid houses an outstanding private collection of art that was assembled over decades by the Thyssen-Bornemisza family.
With over 1,600 paintings, it offers a panoramic overview of European art from the 13th to the late 20th century. Major artists featured include Albrecht Dürer, Caravaggio, Canaletto, Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Piet Mondrian, and Pablo Picasso. The Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum’s Kandinsky’s collection includes:
Houses in Murnau on Obermarkt, 1908
Murnau: Top of the Johannisstrasse, 1908
The Ludwigskirche in Munich, 1908
Painting with Three Spots, 1914
Sin Titulo, 1922
Delicate Tension #85, 1923
In the Bright Oval, 1925
Kandinsky in Azerbaijan
18. National Art Museum of Azerbaijan, Baku
The National Art Museum of Azerbaijan in the capital city Baku opened in 1936 and houses the nation’s premier collection of visual art.
The museum provides an overview of Azerbaijani art and culture. Highlights include decorative applied arts like ceramics and metalwork, carpets and textiles, medieval manuscript illustrations, European painting, Azerbaijani paintings from the 19th and 20th centuries, and modern and contemporary art.
The National Art Museum of Azerbaijan has an extensive Kandinsky collection that includes:
A Riding Amazon, 1917
Madonna and Christ, 1917
Crinoline Lady, 1917
Lady with Flower, 1917
Lady with a Fan, 1917
Kandinsky in Italy
19. Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice
The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is a modern art museum on the Grand Canal in Venice. It is based on the private art collection of Peggy Guggenheim, an American arts patron who lived in Venice for 30 years until her death in 1979.
The museum houses an excellent collection of modern abstract, surrealist, and expressionist paintings and sculptures from the first half of the 20th century. Artists represented include Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Jackson Pollock, René Magritte, Max Ernst, and Constantin Brâncuși. The Kandinsky artworks on display include:
Landscape with Red Spots (1913)
White Cross (1922)
Kandinsky in the United Kingdom
20. Tate Modern, London
The Tate Modern is one of the premier modern and contemporary art museums located in London. Opened in 2000 in a converted power station on the South Bank of the Thames, the museum has exhibited the national collection of international modern art from 1900 to today.
Highlights of the permanent collection include iconic works by Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Mark Rothko, Louise Bourgeois, and British artists such as J. M. W. Turner, Sir Peter Blake, and Damien Hirst.
The collection includes Swinging (1925) and Cossacks (1910), which are not currently on display, but often feature in one of the many exhibitions.
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