Panel for Edwin R. Campbell No. 4

Early in 1914 Edwin R. Campbell, one of the founders of the Chevrolet Motor Company, ordered four paintings for the round entrance hall of his New York apartment at 635 Park Avenue. Kandinsky worked on them in Munich through that spring and summer. On 1 August 1914 Germany declared war on Russia, and Kandinsky, a Russian subject, had a few days to get out. He crossed into Switzerland and was in Moscow by December. The canvases stayed behind in Europe, left with a Dutch collector who had instructions to forward them. They were shown in Stockholm in February 1916, shipped across that summer, and hung in Campbell's hall in the autumn of 1916, two years after they were ordered. Campbell divorced in 1921 and moved out, and the four were separated. This one came to the Museum of Modern Art through the Nelson A. Rockefeller Fund.