Sale: 550 / Evening Sale, June 07. 2024 in Munich 
Lot 123001985
Lot 123001985
Frame image
Raumbeispiel
123001985
Gabriele Münter
Staffelsee, 1932.
Oil on cardboard
Estimate:
€ 150,000 - 250,000
$ 160,500 - 267,500
Information on buyer's premium, taxation and resale right compensation will be available four weeks before the auction.
Staffelsee. 1932.
Oil on cardboard.
Lower left signed and dated. Once more signed in blue chalks on the cardboard and inscribed "96/4 XII.31" in pencil. 33.1 x 44.5 cm (13 x 17.5 in).
• Gabriele Münter gave this painting to the architect supervising the renovation of the "Russen-Haus".
• The unique Staffelsee panorama was one of her main motifs, both biographically and artistically.
• Münter is considered a daring pioneer and the most important female representative of Expressionism.
• Other views of the Staffelsee and Murnau landscapes are part of the most important international collections like the Art Institute, Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington.
• This year Gabriele Münter is celebrated with international museum exhibitions in Vienna, Madrid, London and Bern.
PROVENANCE: Private collection Murnau (gifted to the architect who supervised the renovation of the “Russen-Haus” in the early 1930s).
Private collection Southern Germany (inherited from the above).
Private collection Bavaria (since 2002).
Private collection Southern Germany (acquired from the above).
EXHIBITION: Franz Marc Museum, Kochel am See (on permanent loan 2002-2019).
LITERATURE: Ketterer Kunst, Munich, auction 277, December 6, 2002, lot 91.
Oil on cardboard.
Lower left signed and dated. Once more signed in blue chalks on the cardboard and inscribed "96/4 XII.31" in pencil. 33.1 x 44.5 cm (13 x 17.5 in).
• Gabriele Münter gave this painting to the architect supervising the renovation of the "Russen-Haus".
• The unique Staffelsee panorama was one of her main motifs, both biographically and artistically.
• Münter is considered a daring pioneer and the most important female representative of Expressionism.
• Other views of the Staffelsee and Murnau landscapes are part of the most important international collections like the Art Institute, Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington.
• This year Gabriele Münter is celebrated with international museum exhibitions in Vienna, Madrid, London and Bern.
PROVENANCE: Private collection Murnau (gifted to the architect who supervised the renovation of the “Russen-Haus” in the early 1930s).
Private collection Southern Germany (inherited from the above).
Private collection Bavaria (since 2002).
Private collection Southern Germany (acquired from the above).
EXHIBITION: Franz Marc Museum, Kochel am See (on permanent loan 2002-2019).
LITERATURE: Ketterer Kunst, Munich, auction 277, December 6, 2002, lot 91.
After extended stays in Berlin and Paris, Gabriele Münter returned to her house in Murnau in early April 1931. Planning to stay for good, she had the "Russen-Haus" renovated. In return for his services, she gave the architect this painting of her beloved Staffelsee.
It was in 1914 that she had to leave her dear Murnau in the “Blue Land” head over heels: With the outbreak of World War I, her Russian partner Kandinsky lost his German residence permit and had to emigrate to Switzerland, where Gabriele Münter would follow him, and when he left Zurich for Moscow the same year, she left for Stockholm in July 1915 where she could meet him on neutral grounds in Sweden. It turned out to be the biggest disappointment of her life. “I was living in Scandinavia from 1915 to 1920, having great artistic success on my own, I lost touch with the German art scene. When I returned, I felt like a stranger and barely made an effort to get back on my feet again. During my 'wandering life' in boarding houses in, among other places, Cologne and Berlin, I did not paint much, but in the course of the following decade from 1920 to 1930 I quietly cultivated keeping drawings in my sketchbook', Gabriele Münter wrote in retrospect after her return to Germany at the end of the 1920s (quoted from: Annegret Hoberg, Gabriele Münter, Munich 2016, p. 48).
Through her relationship with the art historian Johannes Eichner, whom she met in 1927, she regained inner peace and an opportunity to process everything she had experienced. In her own words, she wanted to see the landscape “large and simple”. Gabriele Münter arrived at a mature conception of landscape. This work is an extremely typical example of a style that ties in with the scenes she created in Murnau and the “Blue Land” in the 1910s. Refracted colors now integrate the forms into a larger concept and the previously favored strong contouring made way for a barely perceptible accentuation. With a homogeneous and bold use of color and compact surfaces, Münter painted the Staffelsee motif that still retained its old power. She painted it from an elevated viewpoint on the Dünaberg above Kohlgruber Straße, just a short walk from her house, from where the landscape spread out towards the northwest, down the slope with the green meadows, meeting the bright lake between mighty treetops and bright red roofs.
The artist once again explored the view of the Lake Staffelsee, which was a home for her to which she could return after so many years of uncertainty. With just a few contours, she worked out a spatial distance from the surfaces, once again achieving an impressive feat of landscape painting with sparing means. [EH]
It was in 1914 that she had to leave her dear Murnau in the “Blue Land” head over heels: With the outbreak of World War I, her Russian partner Kandinsky lost his German residence permit and had to emigrate to Switzerland, where Gabriele Münter would follow him, and when he left Zurich for Moscow the same year, she left for Stockholm in July 1915 where she could meet him on neutral grounds in Sweden. It turned out to be the biggest disappointment of her life. “I was living in Scandinavia from 1915 to 1920, having great artistic success on my own, I lost touch with the German art scene. When I returned, I felt like a stranger and barely made an effort to get back on my feet again. During my 'wandering life' in boarding houses in, among other places, Cologne and Berlin, I did not paint much, but in the course of the following decade from 1920 to 1930 I quietly cultivated keeping drawings in my sketchbook', Gabriele Münter wrote in retrospect after her return to Germany at the end of the 1920s (quoted from: Annegret Hoberg, Gabriele Münter, Munich 2016, p. 48).
Through her relationship with the art historian Johannes Eichner, whom she met in 1927, she regained inner peace and an opportunity to process everything she had experienced. In her own words, she wanted to see the landscape “large and simple”. Gabriele Münter arrived at a mature conception of landscape. This work is an extremely typical example of a style that ties in with the scenes she created in Murnau and the “Blue Land” in the 1910s. Refracted colors now integrate the forms into a larger concept and the previously favored strong contouring made way for a barely perceptible accentuation. With a homogeneous and bold use of color and compact surfaces, Münter painted the Staffelsee motif that still retained its old power. She painted it from an elevated viewpoint on the Dünaberg above Kohlgruber Straße, just a short walk from her house, from where the landscape spread out towards the northwest, down the slope with the green meadows, meeting the bright lake between mighty treetops and bright red roofs.
The artist once again explored the view of the Lake Staffelsee, which was a home for her to which she could return after so many years of uncertainty. With just a few contours, she worked out a spatial distance from the surfaces, once again achieving an impressive feat of landscape painting with sparing means. [EH]
123001985
Gabriele Münter
Staffelsee, 1932.
Oil on cardboard
Estimate:
€ 150,000 - 250,000
$ 160,500 - 267,500
Information on buyer's premium, taxation and resale right compensation will be available four weeks before the auction.