Gabriele Münter

Gabriele Münter, born February 19, 1877, in Berlin, was a German painter. Along with Paula Modersohn-Becker, she is considered one of the most important artists of German Expressionism.

Education and early years

Gabriele Helene Henriette Münter was born in Berlin on February 19, as the fourth child of a dentist and a housewife. As a young girl, she witnessed the death of her father. At the age of 20, she commenced drawing studies in Düsseldorf but returned to Koblenz the same year as her mother fell ill and died that winter.

In the years that followed, Gabriele and her sister Emmy Münter took several trips to visit relatives in the United States, during which time Münter’s first photographs were taken with a gifted box camera. After returning to Germany in 1901, Gabriele Münter settled in Munich and enrolled in the newly founded painting school “Phalanx,” where she quickly attended Wassily Kandinsky’s “Evening Act.” A study trip to Kochel followed with this class the next summer, where Münter worked in the countryside for the first time. Here the relationship between Münter and Kandinsky intensified significantly.

Travels with Wassily Kandinsky

In the winter of 1904, Kandinsky and Münter travelled together to Tunis, where they stayed until April of the following year.

They then went to Dresden for a stay of several weeks. Münter spent the fall alone in Dresden. At the end of 1905, a trip to Rapallo followed, where the couple stayed for several months. Stays in Paris and Sévres continued in 1906, and in 1907 six of Münter’s oil paintings were exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris, where her work was shown internationally for the first time. The Cologne-based Salon Lenoble presented 64 of her Impressionist paintings in 1908. In the summer of that year, Kandinsky and Münter first travelled through South Tyrol and later discovered the town of Murnau am Staffelsee in the area around Munich. A longer working period with Jawlensky and Werefkin followed in Murnau, with all artists taking up residence in the “Griesbräu” guest house and frequently depicting this in their works.

The Neue Künstlervereinigung München (New Munich Artists’ Association) and the Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider)

The intensive exchange between the artists circled around Werefkin and Jawlensky led to the founding of the “Neue Künstlervereinigung München” (NKVM) in 1909, of which Münter was one of the founding members. The artist couple again spent the summer in Murnau, where Münter ultimately acquired a house in the Kottmüllerallee. In December, a large exhibition of the NKVM took place at the Galerie Thannhauser in Munich, where the artist was represented with a large selection of works. The exhibition traveled through numerous German cities and raises public awareness of the artists’ association.

Two years later, Gabriele Münter, Wassily Kandinsky, Marianne von Werefkin, Alexej von Jawlensky and Franz Marc distanced themselves from the NKVM and jointly founded the exhibition association “Blauer Reiter”.

As Gabriele Münter’s largest solo exhibition to date, Herwarth Walden opened a large retrospective of 84 paintings from 1904 to 1913 in his Berlin gallery “Sturm” in 1913. In a reduced form, this exhibition was later seen in Munich, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Dresden and Stuttgart.

World War I and separation from Kandinsky

With the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Münter and Kandinsky immediately travelled to Switzerland, where they met other Russian relatives of Kandinsky in exile and stayed for the time being in Mariahelden near Goldach. In November, the couple travelled on to Zurich, from where Kandinsky departed back to his home country, Russia. Gabriele Münter remained in Zurich. In the following spring, she travelled to Sweden in the hope of meeting her companion again. He did not arrive in Stockholm until December of that year. In March 1916 Kandinsky left for Moscow again. The couple’s contact became less and less until it finally broke off completely in 1917. It was not until 1921 when Gabriele Münter learned that Kandinsky had in the meantime married Nina Nikolayevna Andreevskaya.

Return to Germany

Despite a few exhibitions in Scandinavia, the artist failed to achieve commercial success. In 1920, she returned to Germany to her house in Murnau, which in the meantime had been occupied by other people. During this period of loneliness, Münter’s artistic output was greatly reduced. The artist spent the following years in Murnau, Elmau, Berlin and with her relatives.

In 1927, she met Dr. Johannes Eichner at a New Year’s Eve party. The art historian and philosopher lived in Berlin. This enticed Münter to move her temporary residence there. In 1930, the artist traveled to Paris for an extended stay, as she hoped to find new inspiration for her work while there. Eichner visited her in July of that same year. The couple returned to Berlin by the end of the year.

National Socialism

In 1933, Eichner began viewing the collected oeuvre of Gabriele Münter in Murnau. From this, he developed the idea of a comprehensive exhibition, which consequently opened in Bremen in the “Paula Modersohn-Becker-Haus” with the title “Gabriele Münter. 1908–1933” and then traveled for three years through numerous museums and art associations. To be allowed to continue exhibiting under the regime of the National Socialists, she joined the “Reichskammer der bildenden Künste” (Imperial Chamber of Fine Arts). Since her works were not represented in any museum collection, none of her works were defamed or glorified at the “Degenerate Art” or “Great German Art Exhibition” exhibitions in 1937. Nevertheless, her Expressionist painting style was increasingly criticized. With the enactment of the “Gesetz über die Einziehung von Erzeugnissen entarteter Kunst” (Law on the confiscation of products of degenerate art), Münter ensured a safe hiding place for her art collection, which included early works by Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, Paul Klee, Alfred Kubin, and others. Even after several house searches, it was not found in the cellar of the house in Murnau.

Late years

Her first exhibition participation after the World War was initiated in 1949 by Ludwig Grote on behalf of the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, who organized the exhibition “Blauer Reiter” at the Haus der Kunst in Munich with Gabriele Münter on the honorary committee. A year later, the Braunschweiger Kunstverein opened the exhibition curated by Johannes Eichner “Gabriele Münter. Works from Five Decades,” which was on display in a total of over 20 German cities. She was also represented at the 25th Venice Biennale in 1950 and at the I. documenta in Kassel in 1955. Finally, she received the public recognition she had longed for as a pioneer of modern art.

In 1957, on the occasion of her 80th birthday, she donated Wassily Kandinsky’s artistic estate, which included more than 90 oil paintings, 330 drawings, watercolors and tempera sheets, 29 sketchbooks, 24 reverse glass paintings and the artist’s almost complete graphic works, to the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus. On this very occasion, a major exhibition opened at the Lenbachhaus entitled “Kandinsky and Gabriele Münter. Works from Five Decades,” which presented over 230 works previously unknown to the public. Other anniversary exhibitions took place throughout the year in Germany and internationally.

On February 11, 1958, Johannes Eichner died after a stroke. Thereafter, Münter lived more and more withdrawn in Murnau and worked almost exclusively from earlier models. Gabriele Münter died on May 19, 1962, at her home in Murnau. In her will, she decreed the establishment of the “Gabriele Münter and Johannes Eichner Foundation”, which has since become an important research centre for early 20th-century German art.

Awards

Throughout her life, she received the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Art Prize of the City of Munich for painting, and the Golden Medal of Honor of the City of Munich for her life’s work.