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Lot Essay
In June 1908 Münter and Kandinsky began touring the Bavarian countryside near Munich in search for a place to live together, they visited the areas around Staffelsee and Starnberger See when they came across the village of Murnau. The bright colourful facades of the houses which are so typical fo the Bavarian villages and of Murnau in particular immediately attracted both artists to the place and ultimately found expression in their paintings.
Executed shortly after Kandinsky and Münter moved to Murnau in the summer of 1908, Pfarrgasse is a vibrant and striking painting from this breakthrough period in Münter's artistic development. Depicting the colourfully painted houses of the village where Münter and Kandinsky had chosen to live, the bold strokes of pure colour in this work reflect Münter's increasing confidence in her painting and her enjoyment of her new surroundings. As Münter later recalled, "after a brief time of experimentation, I took a major leap there - from painting after nature, more or less impressionistically, to the feeling of a content to abstracting to the presentation of an extract. It is a wonderful, interesting, happy period of work with many discussions about art with the enchanting 'Giselists' (i.e. Werefkin and Jawlensky). I especially liked to show my works to Jawlensky - on the one hand because he liked to praise, ... on the other hand because he explained several things to me as well - offered me the fruits of his experience and what he had learned - and spoke of 'Syntès'. He is a pleasant colleague. We all tried hard and each one of us matured (in our art)." (Gabriele Münter, diary entry of 17 May 1911, quoted in R. Heller, Gabriele Münter. The Years of Expressionism 1903-1920, Munich 1997, p. 16)
Executed shortly after Kandinsky and Münter moved to Murnau in the summer of 1908, Pfarrgasse is a vibrant and striking painting from this breakthrough period in Münter's artistic development. Depicting the colourfully painted houses of the village where Münter and Kandinsky had chosen to live, the bold strokes of pure colour in this work reflect Münter's increasing confidence in her painting and her enjoyment of her new surroundings. As Münter later recalled, "after a brief time of experimentation, I took a major leap there - from painting after nature, more or less impressionistically, to the feeling of a content to abstracting to the presentation of an extract. It is a wonderful, interesting, happy period of work with many discussions about art with the enchanting 'Giselists' (i.e. Werefkin and Jawlensky). I especially liked to show my works to Jawlensky - on the one hand because he liked to praise, ... on the other hand because he explained several things to me as well - offered me the fruits of his experience and what he had learned - and spoke of 'Syntès'. He is a pleasant colleague. We all tried hard and each one of us matured (in our art)." (Gabriele Münter, diary entry of 17 May 1911, quoted in R. Heller, Gabriele Münter. The Years of Expressionism 1903-1920, Munich 1997, p. 16)