Schwabing, Winter Sun

Schwabing was a town of its own until 1890, when Munich absorbed it, and by 1901 it had become the quarter where the city's students, writers and painters lived. Kandinsky lived there too, and that winter he painted a house catching the low sun, with snow spread out in front of it. The picture is small, about 24 by 32 centimetres, painted in oil on canvas glued over cardboard, a support light enough to carry outdoors. He signed the front in red, and on the back he wrote down where and what it was, Schwabing, winter sun, 1901. It later passed to his widow Nina, who left it to the Musée national d'art moderne in Paris, and it entered the collection there in 1981.