Gabriele Münter, an expressionist painter, was a member of the Neue Künstlervereinigung München but not part of the Blaue Reiter movement.
Münter was also renowned as the companion of Wassily Kandinsky. She safeguarded a significant portion of his works during and after the war, later exposing them to the public alongside paintings by her fellow Blaue Reiter artists and her own.
In 1909, Münter purchased a house in Murnau where she lived with her partner Kandinsky during the summer. The idyllic residence quickly became a hub for the avant-garde, with Marc, Macke, Werefkin, and Jawlensky among the frequent guests. They all found great inspiration for their artistic endeavors in the area surrounding the Staffelsee. Art history describes these years around the establishment of the Blaue Reiter as the “Murnau period.”
The outbreak of World War I and the separation from Kandinsky led to tumultuous years for Münter. In 1931, she permanently moved to Murnau. The landscape in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps played a significant role in her work during this period, as it did at the beginning of the century. When Münter passed away in Murnau in 1962, she, along with Paula Modersohn-Becker, was considered one of the most important expressionist painters for an extended period.
