Gabriele Münter

“My thing is seeing, painting and drawing, not talking”.

When Gabriele Münter moved to Munich in 1901 at the age of 24 to study at the Künstlerinnen-Vereinigung, she had no idea that she would become one of the most important German Expressionists.

One year later, the daughter of German-American parents is a student of Wassily Kandinsky at the Phalanx School. He falls in love with her and states, “You are hopeless as a student, you can’t be taught anything. You have everything by nature.”

Together with Kandinsky, and the artists Franz Marc and Alexej von Jawlenksy, she visited Murnau in Bavaria in 1909. There, against the backdrop of the blue Alps, she finds a new style. She paints her motifs as she feels them: in bright colors, large-scale and with simplified forms. Instead of many small brushstrokes, she now applies the paint strongly and fluidly. At the same time, however, she also experimented with abstract painting and, from 1926, adopted elements of New Objectivity (Glossary).

Her passion for her own photography and her interest in film, also have a great influence on her work. Similar to photo prints, she paints some of her subjects over and over until she is satisfied.

In 1962 – at the end of her life – Gabriele Münter left behind an oeuvre of 2000 paintings, thousands of drawings, watercolors, reverse paintings on glass, prints and about 1200 photographs.

Bouquet before blue

The work “Bouquet in front of blue” by Gabriele Münter can be admired in the ANNELIESE DESCHAUER Gallery.

The oil painting “Bouquet in front of blue” shows cynthia and asters on a blue background and dates from 1945. Although landscape as a motif always played a major role in Gabriele Münter’s work, around 1910 she began to focus more on portraits, still lifes, and scenes in rooms. The “Bouquet in Front of Blue” is therefore an example of Gabriele Münter’s late creative years, in which she mainly painted still lifes of flowers in various styles and with the help of different techniques.