Gabriele Münter Lot n° 50

Gabriele Münter Cheerful flower picture 1949 Oil on canvas 59.5 x 38.5 cm Framed. Signed and dated 'Münter 1949' in black lower right and signed, titled and dated 'Gabriele Münter Heiteres Blumenbild 1949' in blue chalk on the stretcher bar on the reverse. On the stretcher with Münter's work number 'B 40' on a label and stamped "GABRIELE MÜNTER NACHLASS" on the canvas. - In fine condition, with a small canvas patch on the reverse lower right. Provenance From the artist's estate; Galerie Alex Vömel, Düsseldorf (label on the stretcher); Galerie Gunzenhauser, Munich, private property Southern Germany Exhibitions Munich 1969 (Gallery Gunzenhauser), Gabriele Münter. Ölbilder und Grafik, cat. No. 20 with ill. p. 9; Munich/Frankfurt/Stockholm 1992/93 (Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus/Schirn Kunsthalle/Liljevalchs Konsthall), Gabriele Münter 1877-1962. retrospective, cat. No. 239 with full-page color ill. Literature Galerie Gunzenhauser, From the Gallery's Holdings, Catalogue 11, Munich 1988/89, p. 92/93 with full-page colour illustration. The title of our important still life by Gabriele Münter reveals itself to the viewer involuntarily in the multifaceted, red-dominated palette of the lush bouquet of flowers, which achieves the highest luminosity in the interplay with the blue-red background of the picture. The white majolica dog on the left appears almost real with its watchful gaze. Münter had already owned the ceramics since their time together with Kandinsky. The exhibition catalogue of the large Münter retrospective in the Lenbachhaus in Munich says of the expressive painting: "'Heiteres Blumenbild' of 1949 (formerly Nachlaß B 40) already indicates through the choice of painting medium - oil on canvas - its special position among the larger still lifes of the late years. Here a style is reformulated that remains binding for the painter's last important stylistic period. The painting already shows the painterly condensation of the round flower heads by softly drawn, little interrupted brushstrokes, which fill Münter's best still lifes with an almost sculptural-regal inner life" (Annegret Hoberg/Annika Öhrner, catalogue no. 239, Heiteres Blumenbild, in: Gabriele Münter 1877-1962. Retrospektive, exhib. Cat. Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus/Schirn Kunsthalle/Liljevalchs Konsthall, Munich/Frankfurt/Stockholm 1992/1993, p. 295). The importance of the work for the artist herself is demonstrated by the fact that in 1957, at the age of eighty, she still had herself photographed with our flower still life on an easel in the background. A print of this photograph is enclosed with the painting.