xxx
Wassily Kandinsky's Le rond rouge to headline Christie's 20/21 London Evening Sale
“Each true painting is poetry. For poetry is not made solely by use of words, but also by colours, organised and composed; consequently, painting is a pictorial poetic creation… The source of both languages is the same; they share the same root: intuition – soul.” – Wassily Kandinsky
Christie's will present Wassily Kandinsky's large scale canvas Le rond rouge (1939) as the leading highlight of its 20th/21st Century: London Evening Sale on 5 March 2026. Offered with an estimate of £10,500,000-15,500,000, the painting is one of the most striking works from the final phase of Wassily Kandinsky's career. Created while the artist was living in Paris with his wife Nina, Le rond rouge captures the vibrancy and dynamism of Kandinsky's mature abstract language at a moment of profound artistic renewal.
After leaving Germany in 1933 to escape the increasingly hostile political climate, Kandinsky settled in Paris, where he immersed himself in the fervent avant-garde art circles of the city. His Parisian years were also marked by a significant shift in style, as he developed a new visual vocabulary that pushed his work in unexpected directions.
During this period, Kandinsky became increasingly fascinated by biology, nature, and theories of creation. Inspired by scientific journals, textbooks, and his own observations of marine life along the French coast, he began to introduce amorphous, embryonic, and biomorphic forms into his compositions. These organic shapes contrasted with the strict geometric forms that had previously defined his work, resulting in a pictorial language that is at once precise, intuitive and free.
Le rond rouge brings these ideas together in a finely balanced composition. Delicate grids and solid rectangular blocks of colour coexist with flowing linear forms and curving arcs. Kandinsky explores the invisible yet palpable tensions between these contrasting elements, holding them in a carefully balanced state of connection. In the top right corner, the bold red circle of the title serves as a powerful visual anchor, radiating energy across the canvas.
Colour plays a particularly important role in this painting: during his time in Paris Kandinsky embraced softer, more pastel or “mixed” tones, a change he attributed to the city itself and the unique quality of its light. Against a dark background, the painting's bright colours appear to glow. A pale, cloud-like form surrounds the forms, and is divided from the background by a pair of variegated blue lines, imbuing the compositions with a rich energy.
The painting remained in Kandinsky's personal collection until his death in 1944. It was then inherited by his widow, Nina Kandinsky, to whom he bequeathed not only the works she loved most, but also those he believed best represented his artistic vision. The illustrious provenance of Le rond rouge then includes Galerie Maeght, the renowned Swiss collector Gustav Zumsteg, and the Fridart Collection, where Le rond rouge would rejoin many other masterpieces by the artist.
Underscoring the painting's significance within Kandinsky's body of work, Le rond rouge has an extensive exhibition history including its public debut at the Galerie René Drouin in Paris in March–April 1946, a landmark retrospective of the artist's career at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in the winter of 1947–1948 and the Venice Biennale of 1986. Most recently, Le rond rouge was on long-term loan to The Courtauld Gallery in London for sixteen years, between 2002-2018.
Keith Gill, Vice-Chairman 20/21, Christie's: “Le rond rouge is recognised as a key work from Kandinsky's Paris period: a powerful, vibrant and large scale expression of his enduring commitment to abstraction, experimentation, and the emotional power of colour and form. It is an honour to present this masterpiece in our London season, as I remember the work well from its long term loan to The Courtauld Gallery. We are delighted to offer it in our 20th/21st Century: London Evening Sale on 5 March.”
Gerhard Richter (b. 1932), Schober (Haybarn), 1984. Oil on canvas. 39½ x 47¼ in (100.3 x 120 cm). Estimate: £6,000,000-9,000,000. Offered in the 20th/21st Century: London Evening Sale on 5 March 2026 at Christie’s in London. Artwork: © Gerhard Richter 2026 (0025)
Study for 'Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose'
CLAUDE MONET (1840-1926)
Le Parc Monceau
Two Masterpieces by Berthe Morisot:
Co-founder of the Impressionist movement, Berthe Morisot developed one of the most innovative pictorial languages of her time. In the broader movement to acknowledge the place of women in art history, she stands as a true icon whose works are particularly sought after on the market. Two works offered in the prestigious evening sale embody her pioneering choices.
Jeune fille accoudée (€700,000–1,000,000)
and
Jeune fille cueillant des oranges (€600,000–800,000)
perfectly illustrate the artist's taste for intimate subjects—long dismissed—and her groundbreaking affinity for nature and plein-air painting. Major pieces from a French private collection, kept out of sight for several decades, these two canvases are among those that invariably spark a special emotion when they reappear on the market. 20/21 Century Art Evening Sale, 15 April at 5:30pm.
A Watercolor: Paul Klee's Synthesis of Abstraction:
A major artist of the first half of the 20th century, a poet of abstraction fascinated by the light of distant lands and the magic of nature, Paul Klee was as remarkable a painter as he was a master of watercolor. Nördlich-Winterlich, a watercolor on paper offered on 15 April as part of Radical Genius, Works on Paper from a Distinguished Private Collection, is a perfect illustration of this. Dated 1923, the work belongs to one of the artist's most productive periods, during which—while teaching at the Bauhaus—he developed his color theories and laid the foundations of modern and abstract art through seminal texts. Exhibited in 1925 in Munich by Hans Goltz, a pioneering dealer of modernity, the work entered the artist's estate after his death and is included in the catalogue raisonné published by the Paul Klee Foundation (€400,000–600,000; illustrated above). Radical Genius, Works on Paper from a Distinguished Private Collection, 15 April at 4:00pm.
A Work from the Defining Period of Jean-Paul Riopelle:
Abandoning the brush for the palette knife around 1949–1950, Jean-Paul Riopelle entered the phase that would produce his most emblematic works and propel him to success in Paris. Exhibited by Pierre Loeb and later at the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York, he took part in the 1954 Venice Biennale. He travelled to the United States and met Joan Mitchell. On 15 April, the evening sale will offer an Untitled canvas dated 1950 from a major Parisian private collection. This historic and unique work is emblematic of his work on the surface with numerous paint drippings, placing the artist among the pioneers of French lyrical abstraction, a counterpoint to American abstract expressionism (€1,000,000–1,500,000). 20/21 Century Art Evening Sale, 15 April at 5:30pm.
An Emblematic Abstraction by Gerhard Richter:
For Nicholas Serota, co-curator of the largest retrospective ever organized on the artist, currently closing at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Gerhard Richter “has proved that painting can still be a contemporary language.” Remarkably complex, Gerhardt Richter's work is entirely devoted to painting; he never stops reinventing it through constant experimentation. Breaking with the long-standing opposition between abstraction and figuration, the German master navigates between the two without hierarchy. Similarly, Richter explores all registers of abstraction—geometric, gestural, chromatic. Painted in 1992, Abstraktes Bild, the canvas offered in the sale on 15 April, perfectly embodies this richness and diversity (€1,700,000–2,500,000; illustrated above). 20/21 Century Art Evening Sale, 15 April at 5:30pm.
WASSILY KANDINSKY (1866-1944)
