Nina Kandinsky (Andreevskaya)
Nina Andreevskaya lived in Moscow from early childhood. Her father died young, and the girl was brought up by a single mother. Nina completed two different programs at the university - history and philosophy. She always liked painting, poetry, music, she never formally studied art. Of course, she had heard of the artist Kandinsky - at that time he took an active part in the cultural life of Moscow.
Their acquaintance took place in 1916 — over the telephone. And later Kandinsky confessed to Nina he fell in love with her voice. That same day, he painted his watercolor «To the Unknown Voice». At the time of their meeting Kandinsky was almost 50, Nina - 17. "I was surprised by his stunning blue eyes ..." - she later wrote in her diary about her first meeting with Wassily. On February 11, 1917, the couple married. The bride wore a white dress designed by Kandinsky himself. Undoubtedly, many people thought that Nina married a celebrity. But she always said the opposite, saying that it was love at first sight. In support of this, she remained his devoted wife for almost twenty-eight years.
After the revolution, the Kandinskys didn’t leave Moscow. They were living there, watching the birth of a new country. At the end of 1917 they had a son, Wsevolod, or Lodya as he was affectionately called in the family. But the joy of his parents was short. In June 1920 tragedy struck — Lodya died. It was a heavy blow, and since then, the subject of children became taboo for the Kandinskys.
Life in the new Russia was becoming more difficult. And in 1921 Kandinsky left the Commissariat, where he worked the last few years, and bought a ticket on the train from Moscow to Berlin. Kandinsky fled — from the cold, from misunderstandings with colleagues, the memory of his son and also from approaching totalitarian regime.
The couple lived in Berlin in relative isolation. Despite the fact that there were many Russian artists Wassily deliberately refused to communicate with them. But every day they went to the movies - both adored cinema. Kandinsky soon offered a job in the Bauhaus—a a school that was the driving force of modern art and design at the time. The family moved to Weimar – a small provincial town with no signs of high society life. Nina Kandinsky, a young and active woman, of course, could not accept such a situation. She used all the possible reasons to organize small family parties. That was the joy of her life.
After a few years, the school moved from Weimar to Dessau. The creative life was flourishing there, and it was Kandinsky's most prolific period. But it ended in 1933, when Hitler came to power. He declared abstract art "degenerate". Bauhaus was closed, and the Kandinskys found themselves at a crossroads. They could stay in Germany, because they had not been expelled. But how could an artist live in such an atmosphere? Kandinsky decided to move to Paris. He was 67 at the time, she was - 35 years old.
But living in France through art alone was not easy. Paintings hardly sold, and this weighed heavily on Kandinsky. With the beginning of World War II, the Kandinskys did not leave Paris. The occupation of the city didn’t affect the schedule of Wassily - he walked and painted every day until July 1944. On December 13, 1944, Wassily Kandinsky died.
Nina was well aware that the price of his paintings would soon rise. So she refused to sell them all at once. After the war, she continued to live in Paris, in their home. She sold and donated her husband's paintings to various museums, organized memorial exhibitions. In 1973, she published a book of memoirs "Kandinsky and me." In the early 70's she bought a chalet in Switzerland and moved there. On September 2, 1980, her mountain cabin was attacked by robbers who carried away all of her jewelry. The hostess was killed. The crime was never solved.
