EXPRESSING AN ESSENCE
by Holly Todd
Many people think of Gabriele Münter ( 1877-1962 ) as the most famous pupil and jilted lover of Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky . Thankfully , the current exhibition at the Bucerius Kunst Forum steers clear of Münter ’ s biography , though it begins with several of her rare self-portraits . The artist ’ s critical treatment of her own features and direct gaze hint at the determination of this extraordinarily audacious artist who stood at the forefront of avant-garde art in the years before World War I . She left a women ’ s art academy to take lessons at Kandinsky ’ s experimental Phalanx School and traveled frequently as far as Tunis and the United States , lived in France and Scandinavia , and throughout her life exhibited internationally , including at the Venice Biennale and the Kassel Documenta . Clearly an artist to be reckoned with on her own terms .
Münter later remembered that , as a child , while other children drew stories and did activities , she was captivated by the human image itself , trying again and again to distill its form to an essence expressing individual character . Her portraits , the focus of the show , attest to the success of this endeavor and the longevity of her fascination . They are executed in a wide range of media — playfully terse line drawings , linoleum and woodcut prints , paintings and photographs .
The photographs stem from a two-year trip with her sister Emmy to the United States in 1898 . While there , Emmy bought Gabriele a handheld Kodak camera , which quickly replaced her sketchbook . In America , photography was considered an acceptable profession for women , who were exhibiting and publishing photographs of newsworthy incidents and prominent individuals , as well as scenes from their own private lives . Inspired , Münter created a series of remarkable photographic portraits of her relatives and the inhabitants of small towns in Missouri , Arkansas , and Texas , focusing on characteristic features , postures , and activities .
In one of Münter ’ s best known works of 1909 , she painted fellow artist Marianne von Werefkin , who belonged with Münter at the core of the Munich avant-garde . Later , after Münter , Kandinsky and Franz Marc founded the Blaue Reiter , and Werefkin joined them to paint in Murnau in the Bavarian lake country . There , Münter had taken lessons from a villager in reverse glass painting ( Hinterglasmalerei ), drawn to the naïve directness and deep feeling expressed in this folk art form . Adapted from the technique in Werefkin ’ s portrait are the simplified geometries of the sitter ’ s steep triangular torso and almond eyes , as well as the flat areas of light-filled color framed by thick , black contours . While she later explored a tighter realism influenced by the Neue Sachlichkeit movement , Münter always used unmixed color , producing vibrant works beautifully set off against the Prussian blue walls of the Bucerius show .
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