Josef Albers and Wassily Kandinsky: Friends in Exile A decade of Correspondence, 1929-1940. edited by Nicholas Fox Weber and Jessica Boissel

What a beautiful epistolary is this book Josef Albers and Wassily Kandinsky: Friends in Exile A decade of Correspondence, 1929-1940. edited by Nicholas Fox Weber and Jessica Boissel. The first one executive director of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, the second former collection curator at the Musée national d'art moderne Centre George Pompidou.

I started to read it yesterday and I couldn't put down this book. Every letter is a memory, a fragment of some months spent by the two protagonists: Kandinsky, the chatter one, inundated his friend with long letters plenty of facts, anecdotes, sharing with him friends, connections, facts, including potential journals, magazines, subscriptions; there was a sort of fire in Kandinsky's writing-style, a sort of urgency of telling, reporting; his writing is energetic, and at the same time plenty of worries because of the political situation; he lamented frequently lack of money; he was interested to afford to the USA, but they would have wanted to visit the country: how to do that without too much money? Impossible to leave Paris where they were trying to build numerous connections.
Money is also a dear thematic touched when writing about art. Kandinsky waited anxiously for the arrival of spring for being more productive, because light meant in some words: life, color, new paintings.
Kandinsky was in love for Europe, Italy- Known and appreciated very well in Italy where he did various art exhibits Kandinsky didn't forget his distant German friend Albers and several articles appeared in specialized magazines like Il Milione.

Mentioned all the possible artistic movements; from the Impressionism to the Expressionism; Realism seen with the eyes by Marinetti, Picasso was the most important painter of the moment, but there were a lot of art exhibits of many other painters: one for everyone Cezanne. This book is also important for trying to understand the asset of art created during that decade but also the skepticism of Kandinsky regarding some artistic and literary movements and the best artistic influential characters as Peggy Guggenheim was.
Kandinsky offered a lot of help to Albers during the decade; it sounded that arranging an art exhibit for this friend was impossible in that terrible European phase.

Albers didn't write as much as Kandinsky did. He loved to indulge about landscapes discovered once arrived to the USA. Different birds, more colored than the European ones, different sounds, different trees, beautiful world; yes, another world.
He traveled a lot with his wife; in Mexico where he painted a lot thanks to a stunning light, reporting also the political condition of the country; he enjoyed numerous trips across the USA; in the West Coast, where he organized an art exhibit of his works to San Francisco; later he became a teacher at Harvard; described his trips to Boston, Cambridge, New York City.
Albers thanks to the Black Mountain College created in North Carolina (look at my blog, soon we will discover better this reality) became an affirmed name in the artistic panorama of the USA.

Not only: these two friends thanks to these 46 letters will express also different life-styles because of their different and distant continents; while Albers traveled a lot, the sensation was that the Kandinskys enjoyed to staying at home more time;  the language of these two friends with the time became more... distant, metaphorically.

Europe was living a moment of great sadness and stress; the USA experienced an electrifying moment; at first, the chaos lived in Europe was seen like remote and this reflection of a heavy political situation is read without too much difficulty in Kandinsky's letters, while the letters of his friend Albers are relaxed and sounded to appreciate a plenty and good life spent with joy, happiness and serenity.

At the same time Kandinsky, although appreciated so badly several, numerous invites of his friend to afford to the USA, visiting the Black Mountain College, had always ready some reasons for remaining in France.
This choice meant that these friends at the end of this story became Americans and French citizens, but also that the countries they choose for a living meant their own destiny as well.

Two amazing, interesting existences.

I highly recommend to everyone this book in particular if you love art, epistolary genre. These friends were very creative and original also in their writings and corresponding.

I thank Yale University Press and Hudson Hill Press for the physical copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori