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Gabriele Münter , German, 1877-1962

Title

Girl with a Red Ribbon

Date1908

MediumOil on board

Dimensions

40.7 x 32.8 cm

Signedlower right: Münter

Credit LinePurchased, 2006

Object numberNGI.2006.12

DescriptionThe German Expressionist artist Gabriele Münter studied at the Phalanx Schule in Munich. She was in a relationship with Wassily Kandinsky, then director of the school, for around 12 years from 1902. They travelled extensively before settling in Murnau, a village in the lake district of southern Bavaria, in 1908. The following year Münter bought a house there, where she lived and worked for the rest of her life.
She was a member of Der Blaue Reiter (the Blue Rider) group, formed in 1911. This picture of an unnamed girl is one of a group of studies of women and children that Münter made between 1908 and 1911. Planes of non-naturalistic colour differentiate the angles of her face, giving it a mask-like quality. Münter’s use of colour was influenced by the work of Henri Matisse, Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh, which she had seen in Paris. In Murnau, she began collecting religious icons and experimenting in Bavarian glass painting. With its youthful subject, simplified forms and glowing colours, this picture is both a reinvention of traditional votive images and a response to the art of the Parisian avant-garde.

March 2016

InscriptionRecto: 1908 Mädchen mit Roter Schleife
ProvenanceThe Artist until 1960; Dalzell Hatfield Galleries, Los Angeles, 1960; Private collection; Purchased, Christie's, London, 20 June 2006, German and Austrian Art Evening Sale, lot 4Exhibition HistoryLines of Vision. Irish Writers at the National Gallery of Ireland, 8 October 2014 —12 April 2015

Gabriele Münter: Pictures of People, Bucerius Kunst Forum, Hamburg, 04 February 2023 - 21 May 2023
Label TextThe German Expressionist painter, Gabriele Münter was member of Der Blaue Reiter. In 1908, she settled in the Bavarian village of Murnau. This portrait is one of a number of small studies of women and children that she painted at this time. Münter has used planes of bold colour to delineate the girl’s features and to convey an intensity of expression. The painting reflects the artist’s interest in Bavarian folk art as well as in the work of Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, and the Fauves, which she had seen in Paris.