Brief Biography-Born in Moscow, Wassily Kandinsky was the son of a successful tea merchant who came from Siberia. However, the family became exiled for not providing a Grand Duke with a fresh horse for his journeys. Wassily spent his early years in Moscow, and in 1871 the family moved to Odessa. His aunt educated him in his first years, taught him folklore, and he received drawing tuition when he was ten. He studied law at Moscow University and found a position teaching at a Law School. In 1896 a painting of Monet’s Haystacks at a Moscow exhibition inspired him to devote his life to painting. He gave up law and went to Munich with his wife, Anja Chimiakin, to study art; his family supported them. In Munich, he met Paul Klee, who became a close friend, and in 1902 he toured Europe with his new-found mistress Gabriele Münter after his marriage failed. They stayed in France for a year before moving to Bavaria, accompanied by Alexi von Jawlensky,who introduced Kandinsky to the les Fauves style; however, he leaned more towards abstraction. In 1911, he formed the group Der Blaue Reiter, The Blue Rider, with Franz Marc and received a great deal of criticism in the press about his work. In 1914, he left Gabriele at the onset of the war and returned to Moscow, where he met his new wife, Nina de Andreewsky, in 1917. He involved himself in arranging museums in Moscow and did very few paintings during that period. In 1921, he returned to Munich, where he endured financial difficulties until Paul Klee got him a job at the Bauhaus, where he was inspired to produce more paintings. Later the Bauhaus came under pressure from Nazi propaganda and denounced Kandinsky as an agitator and a Bolshevist, it closed in 1933, and he moved to Paris. Wassily spent the rest of his life in the Boulevard de la Seine, Neuilly and did considerable work until the war broke out in 1944. He died in that year of sclerosis after a long illness.