After a short period of agony there [in Murnau], I made a great leap from painting nature - more or less impressionistically - to feeling a content, to abstracting, to giving an extract.
On August 21, 1909, Gabriele Münter purchased her retreat by Lake Staffelsee, and 20 years ago, it was opened as a museum and memorial to art enthusiasts, just as she had wished. Here is a selection of photographs and paintings displayed in rooms restored to their original condition from 1909 to 1914. The painter, now receiving increasing international attention (with a major retrospective in France in 2020, for example), was far from being an inconspicuous "artist's wife" but was a significant pioneer of modernism.
Between 1909 and 1914, Münter and her ten years older partner, Wassily Kandinsky, spent creative and intense weeks in their Bavarian idyll. They furnished the house together, landscaped the garden, and decorated the stairs and furniture according to their own ideas. The Murnau landscape, Lake Staffelsee, the moor, the mountains, the church tower, the house, and the garden became major sources of inspiration. They often painted the view from the window of the church and the castle. In Murnau, Münter developed a new, powerful pictorial language with vivid colors, while Kandinsky took the step towards abstraction.
In contrast, the locals remained skeptical and preferred to avoid the “Russians' House”, where not only Kandinsky and Münter lived in a free relationship but also Alexej von Jawlensky, Marianne von Werefkin, and other artists, musicians, and intellectuals came and went.
The outbreak of the First World War ended the tragic love affair between the teacher and his student - Kandinsky went to Russia, Münter stayed behind embittered and eventually emigrated to Scandinavia. After her return in 1920, the Murnau house became an important retreat for her, even if it was not initially the centre of her life. It was not until 1931 that the artist lived permanently in her house in Murnau - until her death in 1962, the last years of which she shared with her new partner Johannes Eichner.
Münter's exceptional talent became apparent early on: she was already painting at the age of 14 - preferably portraits - which is why she was allowed to attend a drawing school in Düsseldorf. What many people don't realise is that there are also over 2000 photos of her. She lived in America for two years, secured by her parents' inheritance - her father was a wealthy dentist. Many of her early photographs were taken there. When she was 22, she received a camera as a gift, which she used to take extremely artistically composed photographs while travelling in Tunisia, France, Holland and Switzerland, as well as in Murnau.
After her separation from Kandinsky, Gabriele Münter hardly took any more photographs. In the few pictures that still exist of her from this period, she often looks very serious, sad or depressed.
Even though the love story between Kandinsky and her did not end well, she kept an immeasurable treasure trove of paintings in the cellar of her house, mainly by Kandinsky as well as her own works and those of other protagonists of the "Blue Rider" and his circle, and saved them during the National Socialist era. On the occasion of her 80th birthday, Gabriele Münter donated numerous paintings to the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in Munich, thus establishing its unique collection.
Strictly speaking, it was not Münter and Kandinsky who inspired the other artists to travel to Murnau, but the other way round: Jawlensky and Werefkin invited the two friends to join them in the countryside on the Staffelsee - Bavaria was already absolutely "in" at the time. After a productive summer of painting together in Murnau in 1908, the discussions between the progressive-minded, select circle of artists in Munich, who met regularly in Jawlensky and Werefkin's salon in Schwabing, deepened. However, there were increasing disagreements and rivalries between the famous artist couples and finally a break: in 1911, Kandinsky, Marc and Münter left the "Neue Künstlervereinigung München" and organised their own show, which became the legendary first exhibition of the "Blaue Reiter".
Nathalie Schwaiger