Kandinsky. I was thinking mor of a later painters. I have heard that few of them moved to Southern US in 20th-30th and left schools. So i thought that you may have come across their students at some point of your career. I guess your nick helped.

Your work "Still Life with Coffeepot" got me thinking about M. Larionov - there were two of them. I searched for the link to post for you, but could find only one and i was thinking of the other.
I will look more and post here.