{"id":1104279,"date":"2026-07-22T09:34:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T09:34:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1104279\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T09:34:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T09:34:22","slug":"museum-acquisitions-round-up-a-kandinsky-improvisation-and-a-canvas-by-minimalist-pioneer-agnes-martin-the-art-newspaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1104279\/","title":{"rendered":"Museum acquisitions round-up: a Kandinsky \u2018Improvisation\u2019 and a canvas by Minimalist pioneer Agnes Martin – The Art Newspaper"},"content":{"rendered":"

Improvisation 21 (1911) by Wassily KandinskyHilti Art Foundation, Liechtenstein<\/p>\n

In 1909, the Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) started producing his Improvisations, a spontaneous and, in Kandinsky\u2019s words, \u201cchiefly unconscious\u201d series of pioneering explorations into abstraction. Improvisation 21 was made at a pivotal time for Kandinsky\u2014the year he co-founded Der Blaue Reiter (the Blue Rider) group and published his essay \u201cConcerning the Spiritual in Art\u201d. Only around 30 Improvisations are known to survive, many of them in museum collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Improvisation 21 was formerly in the renowned collection of Hermann and Marie Lange in Krefeld, Germany, and was bought by the Hilti Art Foundation last year. It is currently on view in the Abstract exhibition at the Hilti Art Foundation until 17 May 2027, alongside other new acquisitions by Carmen Herrera and Mark Rothko.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 Estate of Agnes Martin\/CARCC Ottawa<\/p>\n

Tranquility (2000) by Agnes MartinRemai Modern, Saskatoon, Canada<\/p>\n

Minimalist pioneer Agnes Martin (1912-2004) was born in Saskatchewan in Western Canada. Now Remai Modern has become the first museum in Western Canada to acquire a work by her. The 1.5 sq. m canvas was bought from Pace in New York with funds from the Frank and Ellen Remai Foundation. \u201cThough she spent most of her life away from the prairies, Agnes Martin\u2019s works carry a special connection to this region,\u201d say Aileen Burns and Johan Lundh, Remai Modern\u2019s co-executive director and chief executive, adding that the horizontal bands are reminiscent of the \u201cvast expanses where land and sky meet in this province\u201d.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 Woodman Family Foundation\/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; courtesy the artist and Salon 94; photo: Dan Bradica<\/p>\n

House of the South (1996) by Betty WoodmanCrystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas<\/p>\n

Part of a larger expansion of Crystal Bridges\u2019 American craft collection, this large-scale ceramic frieze by the US artist Betty Woodman (1930-2018)\u2014the mother of Francesca Woodman\u2014was previously in the Time Warner Corporate Collection before going to Salon 94 gallery in New York, where the museum acquired it. Jen Padgett, the Windgate Curator of Craft at Crystal Bridges, says the 13ft by 20ft work represents Woodman\u2019s \u201cexpression of ceramics on an architectural scale \u2026 inspired by architecture in the south of Italy and architectural decorations there\u201d. Woodman thinks like a painter, Padgett adds, \u201cmaking brushwork and being very expressive, often playing between two dimensions and three dimensions\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Improvisation 21 (1911) by Wassily KandinskyHilti Art Foundation, Liechtenstein In 1909, the Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) started…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1104280,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3939],"tags":[19467,301436,4021,4020,301437,4022,77,4729,4842,16,15,301435],"class_list":["post-1104279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-acquisitions","tag-agnes-martin","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-betty-woodman","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-museums","tag-museums-heritage","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-wassily-kandinsky"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116962951456071693","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1104279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1104279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1104279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1104280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1104279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1104279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1104279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}