With loose, gestural brushstrokes and a haunting dark palette that obscures precise definition of forms, the German Expressionist painter Gabriele Münter transforms this collection of domestic objects—including a group of Bavarian folk religious figurines, a green bird statuette, a blue vase with flowers and a large white vessel with foliage—into a moment of somber contemplation. The still-life genre, represented elsewhere in this gallery, became an exciting source of inspiration for early 20th-century avant-garde artists who used it to devise new, increasingly fragmented modes of representation. For Münter, it was a theme to which she would continuously return, offering a chance to explore interiority and subjectivity as well as the aesthetic possibilities of personal, everyday items.
Details
- Artist Name: Gabriele Münter (German, 1877-1962)
- Title: Dark Still Life with Small Figures
- Date: 1910
- Medium: Oil on board
- Dimensions: 17 3/4 x 23 3/4 in. (45.1 x 60.3 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Museum, Gift of B. Gerald Cantor
- Accession Number: P.1969.104
- Copyright: © Gabriele Münter / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Object Information
B. Gerald Cantor, Beverly Hills, gift 1969 to;
Pasadena Art Museum, Pasadena, 1969-1975;
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, 1975.
Gabriele Münter
- Paul Cassirer (Gallery), 1910 to 1910
Der Sturm
- Copenhagen, 1913 to 1913
Neuer Kunstsalon
- Munich, 1913 to 1913
Der Blaue Reiter
- Helsingfors, 1914 to 1914
- Trondjem, 1914 to 1914
- Gotenberg, 1914 to 1914
- Stockholm University Press, 1914 to 1914
- Copenhagen, 1914 to 1914
Gabriele Münter
- Haus am Lutzowplatz, 1957 to 1957
Gabriele Münter
- London, Marlborough Fine Art Ltd., 1957 to 1957
Gabriele Münter
- Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, 1960 to 1960
Gabriele Münter: Oil Paintings 1903-1937
- London, Marlborough Fine Art Ltd., 1960-09 to 1960-10
Gabriele Münter
- Mannheim, Kunsthalle, 1961 to 1961
Gabriele Münter
- Munich, Stadtische Galerie, 1962 to 1962
Silent Things, Secret Things: Still Life from Rembrandt to the Millennium
- The Albuquerque Museum, 1999-09-19 to 2000-01-02
Recent Acquisitions, 1969
- Pasadena Art Museum, 1969-11-24 to 1970-01-18
- Pasadena Art Museum, Recent Acquisitions 1969, 1969, no. 13 p. 10
- The Albuquerque Museum, Silent Things, Secret Things: Still Life from Rembrandt to the Millenium, 1999, pl. 41 pp. 104-105
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