“Even if they don’t speak of art very skilfully, what artists say is generally alive.” Wassily Kandinsky was not only the inventor of abstract painting, but also its gifted propagandist. His letters reveal an artist who thought deeply and communicated and organised incessantly. He was also a straightforward and warm-hearted individual. It seems surprising that a significant part of his correspondence has remained unpublished. Wassily Kandinsky was not only the inventor of abstract painting, but also its gifted propagandist. His Kandinsky’s letters reflect his life and thoughts as well as his art. Through the astute, sometimes witty and polemical letters to his colleagues and friends, gallerists and authors, we gain an insight not only into Kandinsky’s way of thinking and his everyday life, but also into the dramatic times in which he lived: two revolutions, two world wars, the Nazi regime, four emigrations and epoch-making art events of which he was one of the main protagonists. In this publication, the dawn of the avant-garde to new dimensions of art becomes an event.

By studying the importance of specialist art periodicals in creating the artistic, economic and cultural-historical value of modern art and visual culture, this volume is dedicated to the history and legacy of specialist art reviews, bulletins, and magazines across Europe-and their echoes elsewhere-in the early to mid-twentieth century. It assembles historical case studies on European modern art periodicals (British, French, German, Belgian, Finnish, Danish), presenting new research on the multiple meanings that such specialist publications assume within the history of modern art. Paying special attention to the interdependence of the art market and the art press, and reflecting upon the fresh insights that new forms of reading bring, each chapter adds to our historical understanding of the modern art review.

Notions of crisis have long charged the study of the European avant-garde and modernism, reflecting the often turbulent nature of their development. Throughout their history, the avant-garde and modernists have both confronted and instigated crises, be they economic or political, aesthetic or philosophical, collective or individual, local or global, short or perennial. The seventh volume in the series European Avant-Garde and Modernism Studies addresses the myriad ways in which the avant-garde and modernism have responded and related to crisis from the late nineteenth to the twenty-first century. How have Europe's avant-garde and modernist movements given aesthetic shape to their crisis-laden trajectory? Given the many different watershed moments the avant-garde and modernism have faced over the centuries, what common threads link the critical points of their development? Alternatively, what kinds of crises have their experimental practices and critical modes yielded? The volume assembles case studies reflecting upon these questions and more from across all areas of avant-garde and modernist activity, including visual art, literature, music, architecture, photography, theatre, performance, curatorial practice, fashion and design.