![\"'Black](\"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/WKandinskyBlack__Violet-300x226.jpg\")
<\/a>‘Black & Violet’ by Wassily Kandinsky, 1923 [Public domain]<\/p><\/div>This week in the war saw the deaths of one of the world’s great artists, Wassily Kandinsky, and one of the world’s great performers, Glen Miller. They died within a\u00a0two days of each other.<\/p>\n
As a student, Moscow-born Kandinsky abandoned his study of law to go to Munich to become a painter.<\/p>\n
He\u00a0went back\u00a0to Russia at the beginning of the First World War but returned to Germany in 1921 and subsequently became a professor at the Bauhaus school of art and architecture in Weimar. After the Nazis closed the Bauhaus in 1933, he moved to France. He was one of the pioneers of modern abstract art.<\/p>\n
Kandinsky died on 13 December 1944 at Neuilly-sur-Seine.<\/p>\n
![\"Glen](\"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/WGlenMiller-268x300.jpg\")
<\/a>Glen Miller in his uniform as a major in the US Army Air Corps [Public domain]<\/p><\/div>American band leader, Glenn Miller, formed his first jazz group in the 1920s and became famous for his song Moonlight Serenade<\/em>.<\/p>\n During the war, Miller enlisted in the US Army (later transferring to the US Army Air Forces) and organized numerous concerts for Allied troops. His song In the Mood<\/em> became a popular wartime hit.<\/p>\n Miller died on 15 December 1944 when his plane went missing in bad weather over the English Channel.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This week in the war saw the deaths of one of the world’s great artists, Wassily Kandinsky, and one of the world’s great performers, Glen Miller. They died within a\u00a0two days of each other. As a student, Moscow-born Kandinsky abandoned … Continue reading