Dahlien. Um 1940/45.
Oil on cardboard.
Signed lower left. Signed, titled and inscribed "27/41" and "46" on verso, there also with estate stamp and a sticker with partly hand-written, partly stamped number B 258 and with an old adhesive note with stamped number "620". 45 x 33,3 cm (17,7 x 13,1 in).

PROVENANCE: Private ownership Northern Germany.

EXHIBITION: Leonhard Hutton Galleries, New York (with labvel on verso).
Galerie Rosenbach, Hanover, 1976 (with label on verso, inscribed "Juni 1976 Basel").

Gabriele Münter received her first art lessons at the 'Damen-Kunstschule' (Ladies Art School) in Düsseldorf and then attended the Society of Woman Artists as M. Dasio's and A. Jank's pupil. Then she went to Munich where she visited the private art school 'Phalanx' which was run by Wassily Kandinsky. In 1904 Münter and Kandinsky began travelling together: to Holland, Italy, France - where they met Rousseau and Matisse - and elsewhere. Stylistically she now distanced herself from Impressionism and her works began showing Fauve and Expressionist influences. In 1908 she and Kandinsky began leading a calmer life in their apartment in Munich. They often met with Klee, Marc, Macke, Jawlensky and Marianne von Werefkin. The country house Münter bought in Murnau provided an ideal working environment. In 1909 the artist began painting glass, a medium which would later also be adopted by Kandinsky, Marc, Macke and Campendonk. Münter was a member of the 'Neue Künstlervereinigung München' for two years and in 1911 she joined the 'Blaue Reiter', the artist group founded by Kandinsky and Marc. She was interested in Kandinsky's development towards abstract art, but her own works continued to be figurative. Her landscapes, figurative scenes and portraits show a reduction to the essential with an inclination towards humorous characterization. When war broke out, Münter and Kandinsky at first moved to Switzerland. Münter, however, decided a year later to go to Stockholm, where she separated from Kandinsky. In late autumn 1917 she moved to Copenhagen. She traveled a lot during the 1920s and spent some time in Munich, Murnau, Cologne and Berlin. After 1931 she spent most of her time in Murnau and Munich.

Throughout her artistic creation flower still lives were important motifs to Gabriele Münter. She attained a rather subdued concept, both in formal as well as in color terms, during the 1930s. Münter more than ever focussed on her closer surroundings. Flowers and landscapes became her preferred subjects. She seldom placed the vase with the flowers so immediately into the picture, just as it is the case with this work. Flowers are seen enlarged and in a reduced style. Integrated into the background’s graded colors they are more than a synonym for a reality of botanical terms. It is the painting’s harmony of colors and composition that make this work so captivating.

In 1956 she received the Culture Prize of the City of Munich. The year 1960 saw the first exhibition of Münter's work in the US, followed in 1961 by a large show in the Mannheim Kunsthalle. The artist died in her house at Murnau on 19 May 1962. [EH].