Wassily Kandinsky was born on 16th December 1866 in Moscow, Russia. His father was a tea merchant.

At the age of 30, Kandinsky decided to go to Munich and attend art school. He turned his back on a career teaching law and economics.

At art school Kandinsky began to shape and form his own painting style. He started to use colours to express his reaction to a subject. He believed that colour could be both pleasing to the eye in a physical way, and pleasing to the soul in a deeper, emotional way.

From 1922 to 1933 Kandinsky taught design classes at the Bauhaus art school in Germany. He continued to produce his own works, and he became increasingly interested in geometrical elements (such as circles, half-circles, straight lines and curves).

​At school he learned to play the piano and cello and later claimed that colours were like the notes on a keyboard and that he could hear music when he saw colours

Kandinsky moved to Paris in the 1930s. He lived in France until his death on 13th December 1944. He produced some of his most accomplished work in Paris, including: Composition IX and Composition X.

His paintings have sold at auction for more than $20 million.