Abstract
This chapter examines the influence of national and transnational biographies on our understanding of Gabriele Münter (1877–1962) and Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944), founders of Der Blaue Reiter and key innovators of the twentieth-century modern and abstract art movements. Focusing on the first biography of Münter by Johannes Eichner, it explores how national biographers’ preconceptions of the roles of men and women led to an ‘othering’ of the artists, reducing Münter’s intellectual agency and overemphasising the spiritual Russian elements of Kandinsky’s art. The chapter shows that feminist art criticism and an openness to new transnational perspectives in biography are now addressing these misconceptions. An examination of diverse cultural influences from Africa, America and Europe enable us to reinterpret their art and better comprehend their aims.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Bibliography
Anon. 1960. ‘Kandinsky: Ringe Gekauft?’. Der Spiegel, 23 May 1960. Accessed 7 February 2020. https://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-43065186.html.
Ashjian, Cristina and Benjamin, Roger. 2015. Kandinsky and Klee in Tunisia. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Behling, Katja and Anke Manigold. 2016. Die Malweiber: Unerschrockene Künstlerinnen um 1900. Munich: Suhrkamp.
Behr, Shulamith. 1988. Women Expressionists. Oxford: Phaidon.
Behr, Shulamith and Annegret Hoberg, eds. 2005. Gabriele Münter: The Search for Expressionism, 1906–1917. London: Courtauld Institute of Art/Paul Holberton.
Bois, Yve-Alain, Leah Dickerman and Matthew Affron, eds. 2012. Inventing Abstraction 1910–1925: How a Radical Idea Changed Modern Art. London: Thames & Hudson.
Buchheim, Günther Lothar. 1959. Der Blaue Reiter Und Die Neue Künstlervereinigung. Munich: Buchheim.
Comini, Alessandra. 2018. ‘Gender or Genius? The Women Artists of German Expressionism’. In Feminism and Art History, edited by Norma Broude, pp. 141–65. Abingdon: Routledge.
Düchting, Hajo. 2000. Kandinsky 1866–1944. Cologne: Taschen.
Endicott Barnett, Vivian and Cecile Debray, eds. 2019. Franz Marc August Macke: L’aventure du cavalier bleu. Paris: Hazan.
Eichner, Johannes. 1957. Kandinsky und Gabriele Münter: Von Ursprüngen moderner Kunst. Munich: Bruckmann.
Florman, Lisa Carol and Bruce Lundquist, eds. 2014. Concerning the Spiritual and the Concrete in Kandinsky’s Art. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Figes, Orlando. 2003. Natasha’s Dance: A Cultural History of Russia. London: Penguin.
Frascina, Francis, Charles Harrison and Gillian Perry. 2007. Primitivism, Cubism, Abstraction: The Early Twentieth Century. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Friedel, Helmut, ed. 2006. Gabriele Münter: Die Reise nach Amerika; Photographien 1899–1900. München: Schirmer/Mosel.
Friedel, Helmut and Annegret Hoberg, eds. 1992. Gabriele Münter: 1877–1962 Retrospektive. Munich: Prestel.
Frevert, Ute. 2016. ‘Von Männerängsten und Frauenwünschen: Geschlechterkämpfe 1850–1950’. In Geschlechterkampf: Franz von Stuck bis Frida Kahlo, edited by Felix Krämer, 31–40. Munich: Prestel.
Gossman, Lionel. 2019. ‘Gabriel Münter Photographer of America 1898–1900’. Princeton.Edu. Accessed 7 February 2020. http://www.princeton.edu/~lgossman/munter.pdf.
Haftmann, Werner. 1949. ‘Der Blaue Reiter’. Die Zeit, 15 September 1949. Accessed 7 February 2020. https://www.zeit.de/1949/37/der-blaue-reiter.
Hamilton, George Heard. 1993. Painting and Sculpture in Europe 1880–1940. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Jansen, Isabelle. 2017. Gabriele Münter 1877–1962: Malen Ohne Umschweife. Munich: Prestel.
Kandinsky, Nina. 1978. Kandinsky et moi. Paris: Flammarion.
Kandinsky, Wassily, 1912. Über das Geistige in der Kunst. Munich: Piper.
Kandinsky, Wassily, Franz Marc and Klaus Lankheit, eds. 2009. The Blaue Reiter Almanac. Berlin: Piper.
Kleine, Gisela. 2015. Gabriele Münter Und Wassily Kandinsky: Biographie Eines Paares. Frankfurt am Main: Insel.
Lucie-Smith, Edward. 1989. Movements in Art Since 1945. London: Thames & Hudson.
Moeller, Magdalena, ed. 1994. Der Frühe Kandinsky 1900–1910. Munich: Hirmer.
Nicholson, Harold, ed. 1988. The Oxford Companion to Art. Oxford: University Printing House.
Obler, Bibiana K. 2014. Intimate Collaborations: Kandinsky & Münter, Arp & Tauber. New York: Yale.
Roditi, Edouard. 1980. Dialogues on Art. Santa Barbara: Ross-Erikson.
Roque, Georges. 2019. Qu’est-Ce Que L’art Abstrait. Paris: Gallimard.
Shafak, Elif. 2017. ‘The Revolutionary Power of Diverse Thought’. Ted.Com, September 2017. Accessed 7 February 2020. https://www.ted.com/talks/elif_shafak_the_revolutionary_power_of_diverse_thought.
Siljak, Ana. 2001. ‘Between East and West: Hegel and the Origins of the Russian Dilemma’. Journal of the History of Ideas 62, no. 2: 335–58. https://doi.org/10.2307/3654362.
Von Wurzbach, Konstantin. 1840. ‘Kauffmann, Angelica’. Biographisches Lexikon der Kaiserthums Oestereich. Accessed 7 February 2020. https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/BLK%C3%96:Kauffmann,_Angelica.
Windecker, Sabine. 1991. Gabriele Münter—Eine Künstlerin aus dem Kreis des Blauen Reiters. Berlin: Reimer.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bode, S. (2020). Gabriele Münter and Wassily Kandinsky: A Reassessment of Transnational Identities and Abstraction Through Biography. In: Rensen, M., Wiley, C. (eds) Transnational Perspectives on Artists’ Lives. Palgrave Studies in Life Writing. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45200-1_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45200-1_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-45199-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-45200-1
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)