Gabriele Mün­ter (1877–1962) was a cen­tral fig­ure of Ger­man Ex­pres­sion­ism and the Blue Rid­er artist group, which was found­ed at Mün­ter’s house in Mur­nau. Her role as a ded­i­cat­ed pro­po­nent, me­di­a­tor, and long­time com­panion of Wass­i­ly Kandin­sky is well known and rec­og­nized. This ex­hi­bi­tion de­mon­s­trates Gabriele Mün­ter’s im­por­tance and in­de­pen­dence as a pain­ter: with more than 120 paint­ings, in­clud­ing works from her es­tate that will be pre­sent­ed to the public for the first time, it will of­fer a new look at this strong artist.

Mün­ter is one of the few wo­m­en who played an ear­ly role in de­vel­op­ing mod­er­nism. Her open­ness and willing­ness to ex­per­i­ment as a pain­ter, pho­to­g­ra­pher, and graph­ic artist will now be pre­sent­ed in de­tail for the first time. Her well-known paint­ings in­clude por­traits of fig­ures such as Marianne von Were­fkin and Kandin­sky as well as ro­man­tic land­s­capes of her adopt­ed home in Ba­varia. The ex­hi­bi­tion be­gins with rare pho­to­graphs tak­en by Mün­ter around 1900 dur­ing a mul­ti-year trip through the Unit­ed States. It will fo­cus on her paint­ings, which, in ad­di­tion to col­or­ful por­traits and land­s­capes, al­so in­clude in­te­ri­ors, ab­s­tract works, and “prim­i­tivis­tic pic­tures.”

Thanks in par­tic­u­lar to the Haubrich Col­lec­tion, the Mu­se­um Lud­wig holds paint­ings by Ernst Lud­wig Kirch­n­er, Max Pech­stein, as well as artists from the Blue Rid­er group, such as Wass­i­ly Kandin­sky, Franz Marc, Au­gust Macke, and Alex­ei Jawlen­sky. Sur­pris­ing­ly, the col­lec­tion does not in­clude any of Gabriele Mün­ter’s paint­ings. On the oc­ca­sion of the ex­hi­bi­tion, the Mu­se­um Lud­wig is plan­n­ing to ac­quire the work Kn­abenkopf (Wil­li Blab) by Gabriele Mün­ter, which is on view as a loan in the ex­hi­bi­tion. To this end, the Fre­unde des Wall­raf-Richartz-Mu­se­um und des Mu­se­um Lud­wig e.V. start­ed a ma­jor do­na­tion cam­paign that has al­ready re­ceived a great re­sponse.

A large num­ber of the works in the ex­hi­bi­tion come from the Gabriele Mün­ter and Jo­hannes Eich­n­er Foun­da­tion and from the Len­bach­haus in Mu­nich, which is or­ganiz­ing the ex­hi­bi­tion, as well as in­ter­na­tio­n­al col­lec­tions such as the Des Moines Art Cen­ter in Iowa, the Cen­ter Pompi­dou in Paris, and the Is­rael Mu­se­um in Jerusalem.

Cu­ra­tors: Mat­thias Müh­ling, Di­rec­tor, Len­bach­haus, Mu­nich; and Is­a­belle Jansen, Gabriele Mün­ter and Jo­hannes Eich­n­er Foun­da­tion; for the ex­hi­bi­tion in Cologne: Ri­ta Ker­st­ing, Depu­ty Di­rec­tor, Mu­se­um Lud­wig

An ex­hi­bi­tion by the Städtische Ga­lerie im Len­bach­haus und Kun­st­bau München and the Gabriele Mün­ter and Jo­hannes Eich­n­er Foun­da­tion in Mu­nich in co­op­er­a­tion with the Louisia­na Mu­se­um of Mod­ern Art in Hum­ble­bæk and the Mu­se­um Lud­wig in Cologne.