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Artist or Maker: Gabriele Münter (1877-1962)
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Provenance: The artist, from 1908-1960.
Dalzell Hatfield Galleries, Los Angeles.
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1960.
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Exhibited: Los Angeles, Dalzell Hatfield Galleries, Gabriele Münter, 1st American exhibition with 7 additional major paintings by Kandinsky, June - July 1960.
Laguna, CA, Laguna Beach Museum of Art, Gabriele Münter Exhibition, January - February 1978.
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Notes: THE PROPERTY OF A WEST COAST COLLECTOR
In June 1908 Münter and Kandinsky began touring the Bavarian countryside near Munich in search of a place to live together. They visited the areas around Staffelsee and Starnberger See when they came across the village of Murnau. The bright, colourful facades of the houses, so typical of Bavaria and of Murnau in particular, immediately attracted the two artists and in August of the same year they were joined by Marianne von Werefkin and Alexej von Jawlensky. The four artists worked in close harmony with one another and together formulated a new style incorporating the bold colours of French Fauvism. Münter herself claimed that after a brief period of experimentation her painting took a major leap that summer in Murnau.
A vibrant and striking painting from this important breakthrough period in Münter's artistic development, Mädchen mit roter Schleife not only reflects Münter's engagement with Fauvism but also with folk art. The subject of the present work, probably either a local girl or a fellow guest at the Griesbräu Inn, is typical of Münter's work from this time which is filled with depictions of young women or children, often dressed in the simple, traditional costumes of the local peasants. Jawlensky had introduced Münter to traditional Bavarian paintings on glass, in which dark contour lines were filled with brilliant colours, and this technique of Hinterglasmalerei had a profound effect on her. The bold strokes of colour and intense palette of Mädchen mit roter Schleife, particularly in the face of the girl and in the strong contrasting planes of the background, reflect Münter's increasing confidence in her paintings and resonate with Jawlensky's influence. 'I especially liked to show my works to Jawlensky - on the one hand because he liked to praise,... on the other hand because he explained several things to me as well - offered me the fruits of his experience and what he had learned - and spoke of Synthès' (quoted in R. Heller, Gabriele Münter, The Years of Expressionism, 1903-1920, Munich, 1997, p. 16).
In a discussion about another work of the same date which could equally be applied to the present work, Reinhold Heller has observed: 'Without the aid of a preliminary drawing, she freely painted the contours of the girl... onto the cardboard. The figure seems to be drawn with an extraordinary sense of certainty and precision, almost as if it were drawn with an extended brushstroke, without hesitation, alteration or correction. Applied in thin paint in totally flat but delicately nuanced tones, contrasting colors fill the forms identified by the black contours; all impasto effects are avoided, brushstrokes are accented and cardboard is visible through the pigment or is left bare in spots... Simplicity of composition and rendering, limited color usage in planar configurations and enhanced black contours are the characterizing features of the painting that recall the art of reverse-glass painting' (op. cit., p. 118).
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