© 2012, Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst .
Interpretation
A major figure in the history of German modernism, Münter was first the student and then the fiancé of the Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky. This self-portrait dates from the couple’s return to Munich after two years of travel, when they became founding members of the New Artists Association Munich, established in 1909 to provide alternate exhibitions for avant- garde artists. Here, Münter identifies herself with artists from Rembrandt to Van Gogh, who painted themselves at the easel, and acknowledges her primary subject matter—landscapes painted out of doors—by showing herself wearing a straw hat.
Information
- Title
- Self-Portrait in front of an easel
- Object Number
- y1992-21
- Maker
- Gabriele Münter
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dates
- ca. 1908–09
- Dimensions
- 78 × 60.5 cm (30 11/16 × 23 13/16 in.) frame: 96.2 × 78.7 × 7.6 cm (37 7/8 × 31 × 3 in.)
- Credit Line
- Gift of Frank E. Taplin Jr., Class of 1937, and Mrs. Taplin
- Culture
- German
- Gabriele Münter: first American exhibition, with seven additional major paintings by Kandinsky, (Los Angeles: Dalzell Hatfield Galleries, 1960?).
- Gabriele Münter, 1877-1962 : memorial exhibition, (Los Angeles: Dalzell Hatfield Galleries, 1963)., illus.
- Creators and masters of German expressionist art: exhibition August 30 to September 26, (Los Angeles, CA: Dalzell Hatfield Galleries, 1968)., color illus.
- Anne Mochon, Gabriele Münter: between Munich and Murnau, (Cambridge, MA: Published for the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University, 1980)., no. 32; p. 36 (illus.)
- Gisela Kleine, Gabriele Münter und Wassily Kandinsky: Biographie eines Paares, (Frankfurt am Main: Insel Verlag, 1990)., p. 337 (illus.); p. 336-337
- Annegret Hoberg and Helmut Friedel, Gabriele Münter, 1877-1962: retrospektive, (München: Lenbachhaus; Prestel, 1992)., cat. no. 56 (color illus.); p. 263
- "Acquisitions of the Art Museum 1992," Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 52, no. 1 (1993): p. 36-83., p. 39
- Barbara U. Schmidt, "Gabriele Münter (k)eine Künstlerin aus der Gruppe "Blauer Reiter"", Kritische berichte 22, no. 2 (1994): p. 26-39., p. 35, fig. 4; p. 34-36
- Reinhold Heller, Gabriele Münter: the years of expressionism, 1903-1920, (Munich; New York: Prestel, 1997)., no. 36, p. 120 (color illus.)
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 211 (illus.)
- Michael Juul Holm, et. al., Self-portrait, (Humlebæk, Denmark: Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2012).
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