A canvas by Wassily Kandinsky,Betonte Ecken, will be proposed on November 17, 2026 at Christie The sales house estimates between $60 million and $80 million. Painted in Weimar between December 1922 and January 1923, she belonged to Solomon R. Guggenheim. The sale has not yet taken place.
This oil on canvas measures 130 centimetres. Its German title can be translated as « Stressed Corners ». It is one of the main works announced for the evening sale dedicated to art of the twentieth century.
Kandinsky: a cost-free estimate
The published range expresses Christie’s assessment before the auction. Its terms and conditions of sale in New York state that the estimates exclude buyer fees and applicable taxes. They are neither a prediction nor a guarantee of the final price.
The price per hammer corresponds to the auction held. The fee is added to form the amount due to the house, to which taxes may still apply.
Christie is showing the ambition of a new record for the artist. To locate the ad,Murnau mit Kirche IIhad reached £37,196,800 at Sothebys in London in March 2023. More recently, ChristieDas Bunte Lebensold in London in October 2026. These results refer to other tables.
From Berlin to the Guggenheim collection
The published provenance traces several stages before the entry of the table in the American collections. It appeared in a sale of the Schwarz collection in Berlin-Charlottenburg on November 2, 1926. Nierendorf Gallery acquired in 1928. Hilla Rebay owned it from 1929.
Artist and advisor to Solomon R. Guggenheim, Rebay plays an important role in his abstract art acquisitions. Guggenheim then bought him the canvas. He gave it in 1941 to the foundation that bears his name.
The foundation sold the work at Sotheby & Co., London, June 30, 1964. New York merchant Stephen Hahn acquired. The catalogue then places it among collectors Sandra and David Bakalar, in Boston, no later than 1984.
The current owner bought it at the Sothebys sale on May 13, 1986, in New York. Christie is presenting it today as coming from a European collection, without naming this seller in the notice of provenance.
A painting of the beginnings at Bauhaus
The period of creation gives the canvas a special place in the painter’s journey. Kandinsky joined the Bauhaus teaching team in 1922, at the invitation of Walter Gropius. The school then gathers research on art, architecture and everyday objects.
In his presentation ofBetonte EckenChristie is highlighting an organization in X. Two diagonals cross around a central blue shape and direct the gaze towards the angles. This construction gives its meaning to the title. It belongs to a period when geometry takes more place in Kandinsky’s abstraction.
The notice also links this organization to its reflection on the relationship between painting and music. Colours, lines and their tensions are part of a composition that no longer seeks to simply reproduce a landscape.
The painting also appeared in an exhibition of the Barberini Museum of Potsdam in 2025, according to the sales catalogue. The November 17 auction in New York will determine the outcome of its new market presentation.
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