Münter's vibrant career was long-overshadowed by her 12-year romance with Wassily Kandinsky. This week, the Guggenheim, New York, opens an exhibition that put her front and center.
Gabriele Münter, Self-Portrait (1909–10), detail. Collection of the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid.
Katie WhiteNovember 4, 2025
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“When I begin to paint, it’s like leaping suddenly into deep waters, and I never know beforehand whether I will be able to swim,” the German Expressionist artist Gabriele Münter remarked in a 1958 interview.
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What Münter, who was in her early 80s by then, evoked, in her energetic words, was the rapidity and instinct that had defined her lifetime of art-making, a spontaneous graphic sensibility that paired with her joyful sensitivity to color.
Wassily Kandinsky and Gabriele Münter. Photo: Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images
Münter charted a rebellious and wonderful path for a woman of her time, establishing herself as one of the most consequential Expressionist painters of the turn of the century. A founding member of Der Blaue Reiter, the influential German Expressionist art movement active from 1911 to 1914, she was celebrated for her vibrant portraits and landscapes. A home she purchased with inheritance from her late parents in the quaint German town of Murnau became a hub for artists of her day—and it was there, where she lived with her partner, the art historian Johannes Eichner, and where she died in 1962 at the age of 85.
But in her lifetime, and the decades after her death, Münter lived in relative obscurity, long-eclipsed by her 12-year love affair with Wassily Kandinsky, the pioneering Russian artist and theorist, her life referenced primarily through the heartbreak she endured during the years of their tumultuous union.
Now, however, the time has come for Münter’s work to be celebrated on its own terms. Two major museums are devoting exhibitions to Münter this year. Earlier this year, “Gabriele Münter: The Great Expressionist Woman Painter” opened to acclaim at the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum in Madrid. This ravishing exhibition gathered more than 100 paintings, drawings, prints, and photographs, which together positioned Münter as one of the great German Expressionists of the era. Now this week, in New York, the Guggenheim Museum will open “Gabriele Münter: Contours of a World.”
Gabriele Münter, Self-Portrait (1909–10). Collection of the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid.
“Women artists and collaborators were long overlooked for their significant contributions to early 20th-century modernism. This includes Gabriele Münter, whose complexity and ingenuity as an artist were largely misunderstood in her own time or minimized in later commentaries about her work,” said Megan Fontanella, curator of Modern art who organized the Guggenheim’s exhibition. “She astutely interrogated concepts of identity and authenticity, form and color. Throughout her career, Münter boldly reimagined the still life, landscape, and portrait genres with her vibrant colors and lively brushwork.”
As much as Münter defied her times, she was also very much shaped by her experience of the world. With so much enthusiasm for Gabriele Münter’s work finally in the air, we take a look into her storied life and her daring and singular career.
A Kodak Moment
Münter was born in Berlin in 1877, the youngest of five children to upper-middle-class Protestant parents. Though women were certainly not encouraged toward artistic careers at the time, Münter‘s parents were supportive. She found a passion for drawing as a child; her parents hired a private tutor. At 20 years old, Münter began studying at the studio of Ernst Bosch in Düsseldorf and then at the city’s Women’s School.
“Even as a child, I practiced with the pencil and, specifically, that I always draw faces… I made no effort to depict events and actions. Only permanence in appearance fascinated me in a person—the form in which the essence was expressed,” she later recalled.
Gabriele Münter, Three Women in Their Sunday Best, Marshall, Texas (June 19, 1900). The Gabriele Münter and Johannes Eichner Foundation, Múnich
Münter’s life was marked by great privilege and beauty but also deep heartache. Her father died when she was nine, and her mother by the time she was 20. In 1898, Münter and her sister, who had inherited sizable wealth, decided to travel to the United States; their parents had lived in America before the children were born, their father working as an “American dentist.”
The sisters would spend two years in the U.S. traveling, spending significant time in Missouri, Texas, and Arkansas. During these travels, Münter came into possession of a Kodak camera and captured vivid street scenes with a looseness and ease that would define her paintings. Though she didn’t regard her photography as art, the Thyssen and the Guggenheim both rightly place emphasis on these images, not only as evidence of her creative ingenuity before meeting Kandinsky but also to underscore her fluidity and dexterity between mediums as well as her willingness to experiment (she would go on to make incredible linocut prints). Her photographs capture some of the shared interests that would be seen repeated in her paintings: informal portraits, evocative landscapes, and intimate still lifes.
Gabriele Münter, Little Girl Standing at the Side of a Street, Saint Louis, Missouri (1898-1900). The Gabriele Münter and Johannes Eichner Foundation, Múnich
“Although she is primarily known as a painter, Gabriele Münter’s beginnings were linked to photography during a trip to North America between 1898 and 1900,” said Marta Ruiz del Árbol, curator of the Thyssen’s exhibition. “This experience with a hand-held Kodak camera, when she was barely 20 years old and had little artistic training, was essential to her later development as a professional artist. These photos have helped me to understand many of her main artistic characteristics, but also the importance of her origins as the daughter of German immigrants who had returned to Germany during the American Civil War, or her position as a woman seeking independence.”
Artistic and Romantic Awakenings
In 1902, Münter enrolled in the Phalanx School in Munich, a progressive arts association and school founded in 1901 by Wassily Kandinsky, Rolf Niczky, Waldemar Hecker, and Wilhelm Hüsgen. The school welcomed women, which was uncommon at the time, and Münter enrolled in two courses: sculpture taught by Hüsgen, and painting with Kandinsky. Münter was 25 and Kandinsky, recently arrived from Russia, was 36, and still married to his first wife, Anna Chimiakina. Kandinsky, the director of the school, was struck by Münter’s unencumbered talents, saying, “You cannot be taught anything. You have everything from birth. The only thing I can do for you is to preserve and nurture your gift so that nothing wrong will stick to it.” This encouragement let Münter flourish. She later recalled that the only “Munich artist who took the trouble to encourage me was Kandinsky, himself no German but a recent arrival from Russia.”
Wassily Kandinsky, Gabriele Münter Painting at the Easel in the Open Air, Kochel (1902). Courtesy of the Gabriele Münter and Johannes Eichner Foundation, Múnich
By 1903, the artists’ relationship had taken a romantic turn, and Kandinsky and Münter soon became artistic inspirations for one another. At the Thyssen, photographs taken by both artists capture them with unguarded intimacy and familiarity, including a photograph of Münter painting outdoors and another of Kandinsky working in their garden.
Kadinsky, however smitten he was with Münter, remained emotionally torn and unwilling to sever ties with his wife. Anna Chimiakina, whom he’d known since childhood, and who sometimes joined Kandinsky in Germany from Russia, leaving Münter on her own. Meanwhile, Münter and Kandinsky’s unconventional relationship, in a prim and proper culture, placed great strain on Münter (her siblings encouraged her to end the relationship). Luckily, Kandinsky and Münter found respite and creative freedom in traveling and ventured to Italy, Holland, France, and Tunisia together. Paintings from these years of travel, including the delicate Lane in Tunis from 1905, underscore Mûnter’s sensitivity to light and color and an embrace of curiosity for new places and cultures.
Curators believe these varied international influences have long been an overlooked and unique facet of Münter’s oeuvre.
“She was raised in a household with both German and American influences due to the considerable time that both her parents spent in the United States in the 19th century… Münter spent two years in 1898–1900 visiting relatives and traveling through Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas, after arriving first in New York,” explained Fontanella. “She likewise lived in France, Scandinavia, and Tunisia for periods of time in her life. Münter attained early fluency in German and English, and later in at least French, Danish, and Swedish. This international outlook, and the ways it informed her practice, is often underestimated.”
Gabriele Münter, Lane in Tunis (1905). The Gabriele Münter and Johannes Eichner Foundation, Múnich.
Münter did exert her own creative independence and stayed true to her figurative, graphic language, even as Kandinsky’s influences and motivations shifted (in an interview at the end of her life, she commented, ‘I will never dispense entirely with nature. You cannot compete with God after all.’). Kandinsky was known to be jealous and, at times, patronizing when Münter went her own way.
In 1906, when the couple arrived in Paris, she was enchanted and rented a home outside the city. Kandinsky, however, grew restless with the dominance of Impressionism in the city and planned his departure. Münter stayed on her own accord and took lessons with Théophile Steinlen, a celebrated Art Nouveau painter and printmaker, and the creator of the iconic Le Chat Noir poster. Mûnter embraced linocuts under his tutelage, a medium naturally suited to her ability to distill the world into discrete forms. The exhibition at the Thyssen features a number of such works, which are strikingly contemporary in effect.
Murnau and Der Blaue Reiter
Returning to Munich in 1908, Münter and Kandinsky would visit the town of Murnau in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps. Münter fell in love with the idyllic environs, purchasing a home with her inheritance in 1909 (today, known as the Münter House). This period was professionally heady for the couple, with Kandinsky helming the New Artists’ Association Munich, a precursor to Der Blaue Reiter. Together they transformed the home into a living work of art, painting folk motifs across its walls (Kandinsky finally divorced his first wife in 1910, too).
Gabriele Münter, Still Life on the Tram (After Shopping) (1909–1912). The Gabriele Münter and Johannes Eichner Foundation, Münich.
Like-minded creatives filled their lives, including their friends, the Russian artists Marianne von Werefkin and Alexej von Jawlensky. Still, as Kandinsky’s reputation flourished, Münter couldn’t have been unaware of her own compromised position, both as an unmarried mistress and a woman artist in the shadow of a more famous man. In her 1910 painting Boating, Münter paints Kandinsky standing tall in a rowboat as he’s rowed by a woman, whose back is turned to the viewer, a figure who might guess to be Münter.
Gabriele Münter, Boating (1910). Collection of the Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee.
Still, the days were a whirlwind of possibility. In 1911, Kandinsky and Franz Marc officially founded the Munich-based Der Blaue Reiter, the formative artistic group that included Münter, Maria Marc, Auguste Macke, von Jawlensky, and von Werefkin, among others. Münter played a critical role in organizing exhibitions for the group in 1911 and 1912. Her style, however, remained true to the world around her and her vivid “inner life” even as the group became increasingly abstract.
Gabriele Münter, Saint George and the Dragon (1913). The Gabriele Münter and Johannes Eichner Foundation, Münich.
The couple’s romantic life entered an era of turbulent demise, however. In 1914, at the outbreak of World War I, Kandinsky, unable to stay in Germany, fled to Switzerland, and Münter followed, but Kandinsky continued to Moscow alone. The couple briefly reunited in Stockholm in 1916, but Kandinsky returned to Russia that March, marking the last time they’d meet.
Her Future
Gabriele Münter. Photo: Georg Göbel/picture alliance via Getty Images
In 1917, in Stockholm, Münter painted a work entitled Future, showing a woman looking out from the canvas with eager directness. It’s an image that could be interpreted as Münter entering the next era of her life. After several years without word from Kandinsky, Münter learned that he had, in 1917, married Nina Andreevskaya, a woman 27 years his junior. When the war ended, Kandinsky, through a lawyer, requested the return of his possessions and artworks from the house in Murnau.
Gabriele Münter, Future (Woman in Stockholm) (1917). Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland/
Accounts vary, but Kadinsky either offered some of his paintings to Münter as recompense, or she kept them of her own will. For several years, Münter’s artistic output slowed, but by no means did her artistic journey end. Many vivid paintings by Münter date from long after the end of that relationship, including a tender group of portraits of children sleeping from 1934, intimate and self-contained scenes of women reading, listening, and resting; and colorful abstracted landscapes that don’t shy away from the contemporary construction and industrialization, signaling her lifelong openness to the new and different.
Gabriele Münter, Lady in an Armchair, writing (1929). The Gabriele Münter and Johannes Eichner Foundation, Múnich
Münter, who became acquainted with the art historian Johannes Eichner in 1927, would reside with her partner, living a quiet life through the war years in the house in Murnau. Münter, at great personal risk, kept Kandinsky’s paintings hidden in her basement, which went undetected even during raids on the home. Only at the age of 80 did Münter donate Kandinsky’s works to the Munich City Gallery, one of the great retrievals of art history.
Her own star turn has taken many decades to arrive, though both Fontanella and Ruiz del Árbol agree that audiences are hungry for a new perspective. “Her disruptive and experimental practice offered a compelling alternative to concurrent innovations in abstract art,” concluded Fontanella.
“Gabriele Münter: Contours of a World” will be on view at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1071 5th Avenue, New York, New York, November 7, 2025–April 26, 2026.
This story was originally published on February 5, 2025. It was updated on November 4, 2025, at 4:45 p.m. ET, with context about the Guggenheim exhibition opening.
Article topics
Art HistoryImpressionism & Modern
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