Chance Encounters, Edition 64
Gabriele Münter: Finding the Essence
I was never interested in being just modern – I mean in creating a new style. I simply painted in whatever style seemed to suit me best. – Gabriele Münter (German, 1877-1962)
A central figure in the Munich avant garde of the early 20th century, Gabriele Münter spent her life expressing the essential nature of her subjects in landscapes, portraits, and still life paintings. To celebrate the opening this month of two retrospective exhibitions of the artist’s work (see below), this edition of Chance Encounters includes a small selection of Münter’s paintings to introduce her to our audience.
Münter was born into an upper middle class family in Berlin and became interested in drawing at an early age. In her 20s, she settled in Munich and began to prepare for an artistic career. At the time, female students were not accepted at the official academies of art in Germany, so Münter studied in the academy of the Munich Women Artists’ Association. Shortly after, the young artist began to study at the avant garde Phalanx School which the artist Wassily Kandinsky (Russian-French, 1866-1944) had founded in Munich. There she was exposed to recent artistic developments in France, especially Post-Impressionism. Kandinsky was the first teacher to take Münter’s ambitions seriously. In 1902, he invited her to participate in his summer school in the mountains.
Kandinsky was quite unlike the other teachers, and explained things thoroughly and penetratingly and regarded me as a human being with conscious aspirations, capable of setting myself targets to aim for. – Gabriele Münter
From this beginning, Kandinsky became the artist’s mentor and eventually the two embarked on a long-term relationship, living, working, and traveling together for over ten years. Münter closely followed avant garde developments throughout Europe and wrote in her journal that she hoped to visit Paris and other places where new artistic ideas were being explored. She and Kandinsky visited many such places between 1903 and 1908, settling in Sévres, a suburb of Paris for a while during 1906 and 1907. Münter’s View from the Window in Sévres (1906) was created during this time and shows the painterly form and observational naturalism of Impressionism. (See Chance Encounters 30 for more on that movement.) It would be a couple more years before the artist began to incorporate the contrasting colors and bold outlines for which she is best known.
In the eyes of many, I was only an unnecessary side-dish to Kandinsky. It is all too easily forgotten that a woman can be a creative artist with a real, original talent of her own. – Gabriele Münter
In her Self-Portrait in Front of an Easel (c.1908-1909), Münter depicts herself as a working artist, perhaps to fight against the perception she expressed. She has also simplified the surface of her painting, creating areas of color with strong outlines and creating interesting color transitions, especially between yellows and greens, which contrast with the pinkish tones of the background. This work was created at the time when Münter (and Kandinsky) first visited Murnau am Staffelsee. In 1909, she purchased a home there and lived in the community for the rest of her life. Both artists were drawn to the slower pace of life and lack of industrialization in Murnau, and depicted views of the town and surrounding landscape using increasingly vivid, often non-naturalistic color.
In 1911, Münter and Kandinsky joined with Franz Marc (German, 1880-1916) and others to form Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), an Expressionist group based in Munich. This group had no common style but shared the belief in art as a vehicle for exploring spirituality, especially the use of color to carry spiritual and emotional values. The name itself reflects these values; the color blue symbolized the heavens and spirituality and the Rider was a nomadic warrior who traveled freely, battling materialism. Like all Expressionists, these artists believed passionately in artistic freedom. The Blue Rider artists were fascinated by the art of tribal and other non-European cultures, folk arts, children’s art, and art created by the mentally ill. All of these were seen as art which expressed itself without what they saw as the distortions of rational Renaissance and post-Renaissance civilization.
I extract the most expressive aspects of reality and depict them simply, to the point, with no frills. … The forms gather in outlines, the colors become fields, and contours—images—of the world emerge. – Gabriele Münter
Münter’s Still Life on the Tram (After Shopping), painted between 1909 and 1912, shows the simplification of shape and contrasting color of the artist’s Blue Rider period. This work also demonstrates Münter’s innovative approach to her subjects; rather than arranging inanimate objects on a flat surface as is traditional, Münter depicts the brightly colored belongings of a tram passenger, using the shopper’s lap as a support and her dress as the backdrop. The painting shows the influence of Post-Impressionists Paul Gauguin (French, 1848-1903) and Vincent Van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890) and the Fauve movement (see Chance Encounters 22 for more on this movement).
With the advent of World War I, Münter and Kandinsky left Germany for Switzerland. Their relationship was becoming strained partly due to Kandinsky’s unwillingness to marry Münter and Kandinsky left Münter to return to Russia. In 1917, he married in Russia, without communicating with his former companion. Münter didn’t learn of his marriage until 1920. She experienced a loss of inspiration and stopped painting for the better part of the decade. Lady in an Armchair, Writing (1929), reproduced at the beginning of this edition, was created when she resumed working. Münter’s colors are more muted but the composition is divided into discrete areas with subtle echoes between different sections – brown hair and chair legs, blue notebook and background, white ruffled sleeves and pajama bottoms.
The language of nature is different from the language of art. One can only translate from one language to another, not copy. Besides literal and free translation, there is also the legitimate form of reinterpretation. – Gabriele Münter
After World War I, Münter returned to Murnau where the landscape provided consolation and renewed inspiration. White Wall and other landscapes of the late 1920s and 1930s see a return to vivid color and strong contour lines. In this example, the intense blue of the mountain and the sentinel-like trees seem to protect the small buildings. The contrast of rectilinear buildings with irregular natural forms emphasizes the human presence. Münter’s landscapes nearly always contain references to human occupants, even when, as here, no people are visible.
Comparison of White Wall to this photograph taken by Münter in 1900 shows that her eye for composition was present even before she began her formal artistic studies. Both of the artist’s parents had died before the artist reached the age of 21, leaving her and her siblings substantial financial legacies which allowed her to live as freely as she wished without being limited by social convention. In 1898, Münter and her sister traveled to the United States to visit extended family. On her arrival in this country, Münter purchased a No. 2 Bulls-Eye Kodak portable box camera, which she used to record her family members as well as the scenery she encountered. She also filled many sketchbooks with drawings on her trip but she never considered the drawings and photos as art, just records of her experiences. This photograph shows a woman silhouetted against the Mississippi River near St. Louis, Missouri. The composition is divided into areas of contrasting shape and tone, in much the same way that Münter structured paintings throughout her later career.
To a 21st century viewer, Miss Ellen in the Grass (1934) might seem a pleasant, summery painting of a young woman paring potatoes. A few details, such as the clear contour lines of the figure and the pure red and blue clothes, are reminiscent of Still Life on the Tram and White Wall, but on the whole this painting seems less radical than many of Münter’s earlier works. Yet in the strict context of Nazi Germany’s artistic policy, the work was deemed crudely painted and unseemly in its scantily clad woman. Fully aware of the risk to her own older works and those of her Blue Rider colleagues, Münter had many of those paintings transported to Murnau. She successfully hid the works in her home throughout World War II, in spite of repeated official searches and her own financial difficulties during the war.
In Breakfast for the Birds (1934), the defined contour lines are present again, carefully separating areas of color, but those colors are mostly muted instead of the strong bright red and blue of Miss Ellen in the Grass. This color difference communicates the different seasons in these paintings. The artist also uses color echoing similar to what is seen in Lady in an Armchair. Here, the rose and pink tones of the curtains and wall are echoed by the pinkish tones around the trees outside the window. Pale blue rims on the breakfast plates echo the blue sky and to a lesser extent the blue clothing of the figure.
When I begin to paint, it’s like leaping suddenly into deep waters, and I never know beforehand whether I will be able to swim. – Gabriele Münter
Painted in 1954 when the artist was in her late 70s, The Blue Lake again uses colors related to the natural appearance but more saturated and expressive. In her long life, Münter varied her style to suit her subject, to express her own feelings, and to convey the essential nature of the world. She created a body of work which built on her love of nature, the teachings and mentorship of Kandinsky, the inspiration of Post-Impressionists and her Expressionist colleagues. Most of all Münter worked as an independent, creative artist whose own influence has equaled those of the artists she admired.
Exhibitions:
Gabriele Münter: Contours of a World, through April 26, 2026 at Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York, USA https://www.guggenheim.org/exhibition/gabriele-munter
Gabriele Münter: A New Beginning in Form and Color (Gabriele Münter: Aufbruch in Form und Farbe) and Kathrin Sonntag and Gabriele Münter: The Travelling Eye (Kathrin Sonntag und Gabriele Münter: Das Reisende Auge), November 22, 2025 – March 22, 2026, at Kunstmuseum Ravensburg, Burgstrasse 9, Ravensburg, Germany https://www.kunstmuseum-ravensburg.de/km/ausstellungen/index.php
The artist is also included in
The Blue Rider: A New Language (Der Blaue Reiter: Eine Neue Sprache), through January 25, 2026 at Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Luisenstraße 33, Munich, Germany https://www.lenbachhaus.de/en/program/exhibitions/details/the-blue-rider-a-new-language
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Several of her paintings remind me of Marsden Hartley' style of painting
This may be a first for me. I didn't see anything that I did not like. :-)