Gabriele Muenter: Contours of a World

A new look at a vanguard modernist artist who reimagined the still life, landscape and portrait genres

This landmark publication coincides with the major Guggenheim New York exhibition of works by the remarkable German Expressionist Gabriele Muenter. Muenter's painting practice between 1908 and 1920 is the central focus of the exhibition and accompanying book. The study also illuminates her lesser-known later work and includes significant examples of her photography taken during earlier extensive travels in the United States. Muenter was notably a cofounder of Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), a loose and transnational confederation of progressive artists and other creatives, with whom she probed the expressive potential of color and the symbolic resonance of forms. Her introspective portraits during World War II capture the "new woman" and explore questions of gender identity.
Highlighting more than 90 paintings, drawings and photographs, this publication not only traces Muenter's pioneering and understudied practice but also challenges accepted historical narratives that have tended to sideline women artists. Reproductions of archival material appear alongside choice selections of the artist's sketches, prints and reverse glass paintings. Thematic texts by renowned scholars explore identity, place, belonging and the embodied experience of modernist women artists during this period.
Gabriele Muenter (1877-1962) was at the forefront of the German avant-garde in the early 20th century and exhibited extensively at galleries and salons throughout Europe during her lifetime. Along with her artistic colleague and one-time partner, Vasily Kandinsky, Muenter was a founder of the influential Expressionist group of artists, Der Blaue Reiter.