Self Portrait in Front of an Easel by Gabriele Munter in the Princeton University Art Museum, April 2017

Gabriele Münter, German, 1877–1962

Self-Portrait in front of an easel, ca. 1908–09

Oil on canvas

78 x 60.5 cm (30 11/16 x 23 13/16 in.) frame: 99.1 × 81.3 cm (39 × 32 in.)

Gift of Frank E. Taplin Jr., Class of 1937, and Mrs. Taplin

y1992-21

© 2012, Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst .

Gallery Label
A major figure in the history of German modernism, Gabriele Münter was first the student and then the fiancé of the Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944). This self-portrait dates from the couple’s return to Munich after two years of travel, when they became founding members of the New Artists Association Munich, established in 1909 to provide alternate exhibitions for avant-garde artists. Münter identifies herself with artists from Rembrandt to Van Gogh, who painted themselves at the easel, and acknowledges her primary subject matter—landscapes painted out of doors—by showing herself wearing a straw hat.

Text from: artmuseum.princeton.edu/collections/objects/33606