Wassily Kandinsky, “Spider Woman” artist Louise Bourgeois and British conceptual artist Tacita Dean

Sydney will host three exhibitions of outstanding international figures in modern and contemporary art next summer as part of a series of blockbuster shows destined for the Art Gallery of NSW and the Museum of Contemporary Art.

Paintings and sketches by Wassily Kandinsky, a pioneer of the abstract art movement in the late 19th and mid-20th centuries, will travel from the Guggenheim in New York to AGNSW in November.

Next door, at its newly opened Sydney Modern, AGNSW is presenting Australia’s largest exhibition by the late French artist Louise Bourgeois, known for her large-scale sculptures and installation art, including steel and bronze spiders, which earned her the nickname “Spider Woman”.

A self-confessed artist, she is said to have been inspired by her childhood memories of the war, her troubled relationship with her mother, a seamstress who worked with needle and thread in the family’s tapestry restoration business, and an absent father.

At the Museum of Contemporary Art, urban art lovers can visit Australia’s largest in-depth presentation of celebrated British conceptual artist, who works primarily in film, Tacita Dean.

Dean created an 11 minute 35mm silent loop film project for Tate Modern’s famous Unilever series in 2012. At that time it was the first work in the series dedicated to the moving image.

The three exhibitions were secured by the NSW Government for its annual Sydney International Art Series, launched in 2010 to bring seminal works by leading figures in modern art to Sydney and to strengthen appreciation for arts and cultural tourism. The cost to taxpayers is never disclosed.

With the expansion of AGNSW, for the first time the gallery has the capacity to host two artists for the series, one in its new building and the other in Walter Liberty Vernon’s original sandstone building.