Now open at Tate Modern, Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and the Blue Rider celebrates work by an international circle of artists who transformed modern art in the early 20th century.
Bringing together paintings from the Lenbachhaus in Munich – recognised as the world’s richest collection of expressionist masterpieces – with rare loans from public and private collections, including a number never previously seen in the UK, this is a major exhibition from a key moment in early modernist art.
The Blue Rider (Der Blaue Reiter) was a loosely affiliated and diverse network of artists from across western and eastern Europe and the USA, connected by their desire to express personal experiences and spiritual ideas.
Tate Modern’s exhibition begins with the collective’s core couple, Wassily Kandinsky and Gabriele Münter, and their creative network in pre-First World War Munich. Munich at that time was an artistic hub of experimentation where different cultures and experiences converged. A room of stunning portraits and self-portraits introduce this diasporic creative community, including Marianne Werefkin’s Self-Portrait c. 1910 and Münter’s Listening (Portrait of Jawlensky) 1909.
Contrasting with the urban centre of Munich is rural Murnau, a small Bavarian town which became home for Münter and Kandinsky from 1909. This space for creative exchange and artistic experimentation inspired a new search for spirituality and an interest in folk art, producing a move to expressive painterly compositions and radically new approaches seen in paintings such as Improvisation Deluge 1913 by Kandinsky and Portrait of Marianne Werefkin 1909 by Münter.
The exhibition continues with rooms offering visitors experiential environments focused on single works which capture modernism’s fascination with sound, colour and light, including Kandinsky’s Impression III (Concert) 1911 and Franz Marc’s 1911 Deer in the Snow II.
And the exhibition concludes by showing how the Blue Rider artists ensured their lasting legacy in ways we recognise today – publishing manifestos and editorials, curating exhibitions, touring shows, and fostering relationships with museums and galleries.
With the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914 the collective was dispersed, but their ideas and aspirations for a transnational creative community still resonate powerfully today.
Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and the Blue Rider is now open at Tate Modern. For further information: tate.org.uk
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Image: Franz Marc, Deer in the Snow II,1911, Lenbachhaus Munich, Donation of Elly Koehler