Gabriele Münter

Gabriele Münter was a pivotal figure in the German Expressionist movement, known for her vibrant use of colour and bold compositions. Born in 1877 in Berlin, Germany, Münter attended the Women's Art School in Düsseldorf before joining the Phalanx School in Munich, where she met Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky. Their relationship, both personal and professional, became a significant influence on her career.

Münter’s artistic development was closely tied to her involvement with Kandinsky and the Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) group, a circle of avant-garde artists, which also included Franz Marc, who sought to express spiritual truths through abstract and symbolic forms. Gabriele Münter and Kandinsky shared a deep connection, both as lovers and collaborators. Their partnership led to significant artistic exploration, with Kandinsky’s theories on colour and abstraction deeply influencing Münter’s work.

Münter’s work and practice saw great consolidation during the first decade of the 20th century. Strongly influenced by the Fauvism movement and works by artists such as Matisse, Gauguin and van Gogh, Münter leaned towards representation, developed during the years she spent in Murnau, a Bavarian market town untouched by industrialism, progress and technology. Inspired by her surroundings and the local folk art traditions, Münter painted with a new fervency, exploring a radical new approach to colour and form in her work.

During her years in Murnau, Münter’s most important artistic ambitions were focussed on her landscapes, which were the major site of her painterly experimentation and innovation. Freed from a purely descriptive role within the structure of the painting, the vibrant, glowing colours on her canvas took on a new level of expressiveness within the scene, and demonstrate the ways in which Münter was now moving beyond her formative influences to reach her own unique style.

Gabriele Münter’s paintings often feature landscapes, still lifes and portraits, capturing the essence of her subjects with a unique clarity and emotional depth. Executed in intense, luminous swathes of colour, Gelbes Haus mit Apfelbaum(1910) is exemplary of her artistic triumph. In 2022 Christie’s sold this work for £1,782,000, a world auction record for Münter.

Gabriele Münter continued to create art until her death in 1962. Her work was exhibited widely, including in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Royal Academy of Arts in London and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.