Gabriele Münter

In the summer of 1908, Gabriele Münter and Wassily Kandinsky discovered Murnau am Staffelsee, nestled between a hilly landscape and high mountains, on the outskirts of Munich. In 1909, the artist purchased a house on the outskirts of the village, which she lived in with Kandinsky from time to time until 1914. The landscape of Murnau, but also its folk art, namely reverse glass painting, became important sources of inspiration for her art. In retrospect, the artist described her stay in 1908 in particular, during which she worked here with Alexej Jawlensky, as decisive for the development of her novel, expressive realisation of the natural model: "The first time I studied there, in the late summer of 1908, I was full of images of the place and the location (...). More and more I realised the clarity and simplicity of this world. Especially when the foehn wind was blowing, the mountains stood out in the picture as a strong final colour, black-blue. This was the colour I loved most." (Gabriele Münter)
The concentration of the landscape in large areas, the neglect of perspective in favour of the surface and simplification of the contours to heighten expression, the increasing independence of colour from the natural model are characteristics of her painting style, which also characterise the atmospheric watercolour "Vorgebirgslandschaft bei Murnau". It shows a gentle, green hilly landscape with sparse trees in front of a high mountain massif in blue as the fog rises.
Dated 1914, the watercolour is one of the works created before her and Wassily Kandinsky's emigration. With the outbreak of the First World War, they both left Germany and settled temporarily in Switzerland. Anette Brunner