In 1967, art publisher Pierre Argillet met Nina Kandinsky, wife of Wassily Kandinsky, in Neuilly, near Paris. Nina had just found in her cellar some old wood engraved by her husband between 1904 and 1911, and proposed to republish these works.  The result was a large album containing 8 woodcut engravings, each with a verso poem by Kandinsky, prefaced by Jean Cassou. Nina Kandinsky affixed artist’s studio stamp on the engravings.  "Craie et Suie" (Chalk and Soot) is the poem accompanying the "Felsen" (Cliffs) engraving.  100 examples were printed on Arches paper, and another 100 were printed on elegant Japon paper, this print being one printed on Japon paper.  Matted and framed to preserve the full sheet and verso poem to museum-grade standards in an 1 1/4 inch wide flat black wood frame, soft white conservation mat, and protected by Tru Vue Optium Museum Acrylic® glazing.  Mat opening size: 6 x 6 3/4 inches; overall size with frame: 25 x 21 inches.  The print is in mint condition, having never been previously displayed.  As with all of our framed art, the frame and framing materials are new, and once framed is stored in a controlled environment away from light.  A fine art reproduction of the verso poem, framed to the same standards, complements this rare print.  The poem's English translation is as follows:
 
Chalk and soot
O, how slowly it goes!
If only someone could say to man: faster, so go faster, faster, faster, faster
quickly, faster.
But he's not there.
But maybe it's still there? This black face with white lips, all white, as if made up with chalk, smeared, made up.
And those green ears!
Were they green? Or not? Or still? The trees lose their foliage, their dress, their adornment, their body, their crown each autumn. Every fall. And how many more? How much
more autumns?
Eternity? Or not? Or still?
How slowly it goes!
Every spring, violets grow which are fragrant, fragrant.
They always smell. Don't they ever stop
to embalm? Or still? Would you rather he had a white face, black lips, as if painted with soot, smeared,
Would you prefer that?
made up?
Or is there one anyway who will say to the man and who perhaps has already said: faster, faster, faster, faster, faster, faster, faster, faster.
 
Wassily Kandinsky (1866 - 1944) was a Russian-born painter and art theorist, one of the first creators of pure abstraction in modern painting.  After successful Avant-Garde exhibitions, he founded the influential "Der Blaue Reiter" (The Blue Rider), a magazine which was run by fellow artists of the Expressionist movement, and began completely abstract painting.  His forms evolved from fluid and organic to geometric, and to pictographic.  His influence on 20th-century art was profound.