Kandinsky and the Harmony of Silence

Kandinsky and the Harmony of Silence: Painting with White Border provides a fascinating, in-depth look at Wassily Kandinsky's creative process during the five months leading up to his 1913 masterpiece Painting with White Border (Moscow), now in the collection of The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

This exhibition reunites the painting with Kandinsky's 1913 oil study Sketch 1 for Painting with White Border (Moscow), a major holding of The Phillips Collection, as well as ten other preparatory studies in watercolor, ink, and pencil.

The exhibition also highlights the results of an in-depth conservation study of the Phillips and Guggenheim paintings, including an infrared image that reveals another painting beneath the Phillips oil study.

Inspired by a visit to his native Moscow in 1912, Kandinsky sought in Painting with White Border to express his "extremely powerful impressions" of the city. His preparatory studies and the painting include veiled allusions to a troika and to St. George and the dragon. Kandinsky ultimately resolved the composition by surrounding it with soft white space, the "white border" of the title.

Date: until September 4, 2011.
Location: The Phillips Collection. 1600 21st Street, NW, Washington, D.C.
Hours: from Tuesday to Saturday from 10am to 5pm. Thursdays from 10am until 8.30pm. Sundays from 11am to 6pm.