NEW YORK, November 5 (RIA Novosti) - A famous painting by Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky, called Krass und Mild (Dramatic and Mild), was sold for $9.4 million at an auction at Sotheby's in New York.
The painting, created by a founder of abstract expressionism in 1932 in Germany, was originally estimated at $6-8 million.
Wassily Kandinsky, one of the most famous artists of the 20th century, started painting studies at the University of Dorpat in Estonia at the age of 30. In 1896, he moved to the German city of Munich, where he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts. The artist returned to Russia in 1914, after the start of WWI, but returned to Germany in 1921. He taught at the Bauhaus School of Art and Architecture from 1922 until the Nazis closed it in 1933.
In this period, Kandinsky's name became world famous, as he was proclaimed the theoretician and leading figure of abstract painting. His exhibitions were held almost yearly in Europe and the United States.
Kandinsky had been considered the "most expensive" Russian painter until last year. The title then passed to Kazimir Malevich, whose Suprematist Composition was sold at Sotheby's for $60 million, staging the new "Russian" record.
Kandinsky's huge painting Fugue, which went for $20 million at Sotheby's in 1990, is considered the artist's most expensive masterpiece. His paintings are on display in several museums in New York.
The last Sotheby's auction has been the biggest commercial success of the company since the outbreak of the economic crisis. The total gain from the Impressionist and modern art auction was $180.9 million.
A rare sculpture of Swiss surrealist sculptor and painter Alberto Giacometti L'Homme Qui Chavire (Falling Man), which had a high presale estimate of $12 million, was sold for $19.4 million.
The sales at the previous auction, held in January, were estimated at $64 million.
At Monday's auction at Sotheby's, sales of Russian artworks netted about $13.8 million, well above the estimate of $6-9 million and despite the global economic crisis.
