The artist Gabriele Münter and her partner Wassily Kandinsky lived in the so-called Münter House in the Bavarian town of Murnau. On 9 July 2024, the Münter House will celebrate its 25th anniversary as a public place of remembrance. Admission is free on this day. Following its renovation in 1998/99, the house was opened to the public as a memorial to Münter’s art and Kandinsky’s works. It has been faithfully restored to its original state from 1909 to 1914 and is furnished with numerous paintings, prints, reverse glass pictures and folk art.
Image above: Das Münter-Haus in Murnau, photo: Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau München
Gabriele Münter purchased the house on the Kottmüllerallee in Murnau on August 21, 1909. From then until 1914, Gabriele Münter (1877–1962) and Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) frequently stayed in the house popularly known as the Russenhaus (“House of the Russian”). They furnished it together, laid out the garden, and decorated their furniture with their own painted designs.
The countryside around Murnau, but especially the house itself, the garden, and the immediate surroundings, were an important source of inspiration for Münter and Kandinsky. They often painted the window views of the church, the castle, or the mountains. It was through his interest in the landscape that Kandinsky’s painting developed toward abstraction.
The Münter House also played a formative role in the history of the Blue Rider. It became an important meeting place of the avant-garde. Franz Marc, who lived in nearby Sindelsdorf, Alexej von Jawlensky, Marianne von Werefkin, August Macke, and Arnold Schönberg were frequent visitors, as well as collectors and gallerists. Working meetings preparatory to the publication of The Blue Rider Almanach took place here in October 1911. Besides Münter and Kandinsky, Franz and Maria Marc and August and Elisabeth Macke were involved.
When the First World War broke out in 1914, Münter and Kandinsky first fled to Switzerland, since Kandinsky, being Russian, was now considered one of the enemy. He returned to Moscow in November 1914, where he was to remain until 1921. Gabriele Münter lived in Sweden from summer 1915 until December 1917, finally settling in Copenhagen.
At the start of 1920, Münter returned to Germany. From 1931 until her death in 1962, the painter lived in the house in Murnau again, from 1936 on together with her later partner, the art historian Johannes Eichner (1886–1958). In the basement of the house, she safeguarded an inestimable treasury of paintings, mainly by Wassily Kandinsky, but also works of her own and by other major Blue Rider proponents and those of the broader circle, thus rescuing them in the era of National Socialism. On the occasion of her 80th birthday, Gabriele Münter donated important parts of this unique collection to the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in Munich.
WHEN?
Tuesday, 9 July 2024
Opening hours: Tuesday-Sunday & public holidays 2 – 5 pm
WHERE?
Münter-Haus
Kottmüllerallee 6
82418 Murnau am Staffelsee
COST?
Admission: 3 EUR for persons over 25 years of age
Admission free on 9 July 2024.
