Holzschnitte für Xxeme Siècle
Wassily Kandinsky
Holzschnitte für Xxeme Siècle
woodcut
1939
An original Wassily Kandinsky woodcut print.
1939
Original woodcut printed in two colors (red, blue) on wove paper.
Signed with the artist’s monogram, the letter “K” in an angle, in the block lower left.
A superb impression from the first and only edition of 1200 (there were no hand signed impressions) published in the review XXeme Siècle, no/ 5/6, 1939 (there were 600 each in the French and English editions, the majority of which were destroyed or lost during the War). Published by XXeme Siècle, Paris, 1939.
Catalog: Roethel 201
Size Image: 8 5/8 x 11 1/4 inches
Sheet Size: 9 ½ x 12 ½ inches
The blocks for this woodcut were carved by Kandinsky in 1939; he had at that time agreed to allow XXeme Siècle to republish from the original blocks six woodcuts from his earlier Blaue Reiter period. To mark the occasion he also made a new woodcut, this piece. The edition issued with the review is the only one to have been printed. It is one of the very few prints dating from his important quasi-geometric Paris period of the late 1930’s, and an excellent example of his printmaking style at that time.
