Bedroom in Ainmillerstrasse

In 1909 an exhibition in Munich showed the first version of Vincent van Gogh's Bedroom, the little room in Arles he had painted in 1888. Kandinsky saw it, and the van Gogh writer Martin Bailey counts that show among the things that pushed him toward bolder colour that year. This is Kandinsky's own bedroom, in the Schwabing flat he shared with the painter Gabriele Münter, and beside van Gogh's it looks like a far easier place to live. Van Gogh's room is shuttered. Here the window is uncovered and the room feels airy. There is a pair of cups on the table and a pair of slippers under the bed. He painted it on cardboard about 70 centimetres wide and signed it at the lower right, KANDINSKY 1909.