Gabriele Münter

Transcript I did my presentation on Gabriele Münter who was a German Expressionist painter. The question that my proposal is concerned with is “In What Ways Did Gabriele Münter’s Body of Work Embody a Personal Narrative and a Broader Discourse?” Gabriele Münter was born February 19th, 1877, in Berlin, Germany. She was the youngest sibling of 5 children to parents Wilhelmine and Carl Friedrich Münter, both removed from her life by the time she was 20 years old. Münter grew up in a time and place where being a woman artist was strongly discouraged. Gabriele Münter went to the Phalanx School in Munich in 1902 where she studied sculpture and woodcut techniques. This is where she met Wassily Kandinsky who at the time was the director of the school and her professor for still life and landscape painting classes. This is where she was introduced to Post-Impressionism art. Her relationship with Wassily Kandinsky was a very significant part of her life. Gabriele Münter met Wassily Kandinsky when she was 25 in art school as he was her professor at age 36. He was married but it was not long that they became admirers and began traveling in secret. Kandinsky began making post-impressionist paintings, some of which containing the presence of Gabriele. Kandinsky eventually left his wife in 1911 to live openly with Gabriele and was also a member of The Blue Rider group. Eventually he had informed Münter that he preferred to live alone and eventually married off to another woman. Münter sued Kandinsky for the shame he brought her and ended up retaining almost 1000 works of his. Münter lived in the shadow of Kandinsky most of her life, partially because of the roles of women at the time. In their time together both Münter and Kandinsky featured one another in their work. This can be seen in the painting, Boating, where Kandinsky is the central figure in the imagery content. This is boating and Münter is actually the figure looking away from the viewer while Kandinsky is looking towards the viewer. This is another piece included in my research and this is breakfast of the birds from 1934. This piece has been interpreted to indicate emotional isolation and solitude. The woman in the painting is believed to be Münter herself. This is Stafelsee which is a landscape painting and that is a lake where she resided in Münich, alos from 1934. This piece is also from 1934, Procession in Murnau of 1934 depicts the feast of Corpus Christi with the Nazi flags hanging from all the windows. She was advised that paintings like these could cause her trouble in her career and that she should paint less expressionistically. She did not attract the liking of Nazis as they advertised a taste in certain artists, her not being one of them. For a while after this Münter returned to her more settling imagery of landscapes and portraiture. Gabriele Münter was a member of the Blaue Reiter group which formed in 1911 as a movement of German Expressionism and abstraction in Munich. The aims of the group centered on the notion to pursue the spiritual value of art. The like-minded artists who launched this idea were Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, and Gabriele Münter; but the group consisted of more artists alongside these. This group often recognized the relationship between music and art while also exploring the way color is perceived. In conclusion, Gabriele Münter made a career out of being a female artist in the late nineteenth century/early twentieth century- a time where this was not an easy path. Her personal relationship with Kandinsky not only affected her career but also affected the work that she produced. The political climate, specifically in Germany, was also a significant factor in producing work, especially the kind of work that she had been told was acceptable. After conducting research, it has been made visible that Münter was encouraged to make work that did not raise issues or bring controversy to her name. This being said, Münter was a pivotal artist for expressionist painting with her expressive line, simplistic forms, and vivid coloration