This is a very nicely produced book, graphically rich and lavishly illustrated, almost a complete catalogue of Kandinsky’s sketches and drawings. The editors have done an amazing job collecting these sketches from the numerous collections that hold Kandinsky’s work and presenting them in the one place. Hence the book will be a valuable resource for Kandinsky scholars and researchers.

There is a short Foreword by editor Larry Warsh, and then a slightly longer essay, “Kandinsky: The Vagueness of a World Without Objects” by editor Dieter Buchart. These are informative and explain a little about Kandinsky and his work, hardly in-depth scholarly discussion of his work and philosophy unfortunately. These essays are followed by hundreds of sketches and drawings, page, after page, after page.

I found the book rather disappointing. It is certainly not for the general reader/art lover interested in Kandinsky’s work. This collection would have benefited immensely from another two or three critical in-depth essays, investigating Kandinsky’s theories and philosophy, especially discussing how his sketches were both works of art in their own right and how they also inspired his paintings. Showing some of Kandinsky’s sketches beside his finished paintings would have been most instructive and made the book far more useful.

Wassily Kandinsky was a pioneer, a brilliant thinker and amazing artist, however, his theoretical ideas are not easy to grasp from his drawings alone, a little help in this regard would have made this a far more interesting book and suitable to a larger audience.