Herbst bei Murnau (Autumn near Murnau) was painted by the Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky in 1908. Accompanied by his girlfriend, the artist Gabriele Münter, he arrived in mid-August that year and continued to paint there into the autumn, at least through September. They stayed at an inn, the Gasthof Griesbräu, with their friends and fellow artists Alexej Jawlensky and Marianne von Werefkin. Murnau is a small market town on the Staffelsee about seventy kilometres south of Munich. Kandinsky had stopped briefly in Murnau in 1904; earlier, in 1902, he had taken his students - including Münter - from the Phalanx art school to the nearby town of Kochel. Kandinsky was born in Moscow in 1866, studied law and economics before he decided at age thirty to move to Munich to study painting. He quickly became active in organising art exhibitions, writing reviews and teaching drawing and painting. While married to his cousin Ania Shemiakina, he fell in love with Münter while she was his student. After years of travelling together, Kandinsky and Münter visited Murnau in June 1908 and decided to return with Jawlensky and Werefkin later in the summer. All four artists (three of them Russian except Münter who was German) lived in Munich but were eager to spend time working directly from nature in the country. In August Kandinsky painted views from his window at the inn as well as streets and colourful houses in the town. Often the exact locations can be identified. In early September he went to Munich for a few days to move into an apartment at Ainmillerstrasse 36 in Schwabing. However, he soon returned to Murnau where he painted landscapes with autumn foliage. 

In Herbst bei Murnau, the foreground tree displays red leaves, but those in the distance are still mainly green as are the meadows. The green contrasts with the dark blue mountains and the heavy grey sky. Kandinsky painted out-of-doors on small pieces of cardboard (about 32 x 41 cm), probably capturing the view at a single session without making preparatory studies. In a few cases, he created a larger version of the subject: for example, Herbstlandschaft mit Booten, Starnberger See and Murnau- Kohlgruberstrasse.¹ During the early autumn Kandinsky painted the surrounding countryside to the west and north-east more than the town itself. Other autumn landscapes related to Herbst bei Murnau include: Murnaumit blauem Haus (Murnau- with Blue House), Murnau, Herbstliche Landschaft mit Kirche (Murnau, Autumn Landscape with Church), Bayeriches Dorf mit Feld (Bavarian Village with Field), Herbstimpression (Autumn Impression), Herbststudie bei Oberau (Autumn Study near Oberau) and Herbst in Bayern (Autumn in Bavaria).² 

In the spring of 1909 Kandinsky, Münter, Jawlensky and Werefkin returned to Murnau. On 21 August 1909 Münter bought a house on Kottmüllerallee that Kandinsky particularly liked. It had a garden in front and views of the church of St Nikolaus and the Schloss (castle). She and Kandinsky spent time in their Murnau house, taking the train there from Munich in all seasons, even in the winter. Kandinsky collected folk art, made Hinterglasbilder (painting on the reverse of glass) and worked in the garden. By 1911 his paintings became remarkably abstract although many motifs can be traced back to Murnau landscapes. In 1911 Kandinsky met the German artist Franz Marc, who lived nearby in Kochel, and together they edited and wrote essays for the Blaue Reiter, which was published the following year. Kandinsky and Münter stayed often in Murnau from 1908 to 1914. In fact, they were there when World War I began and they had to leave suddenly. As a Russian citizen, Kandinsky became an enemy alien and fled to neutral Switzerland for several months before going back to Moscow. During the war years he travelled once to Sweden to meet Münter who was waiting for him. She kept Kandinsky’s paintings hidden in the cellar of her Murnau house: they form the nucleus of the collection of the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in Munich. Likewise, Münter’s Murnau house is preserved as a museum and maintained by Lenbachhaus. 

Although he had promised to marry Münter, Kandinsky married a young Russian woman, Nina Andreevskaia, in 1917. He returned to Germany in 1921, invited by Walter Gropius to teach at the Bauhaus, but never went back to Murnau or Munich. 

Purchased from a Sotheby’s auction in 2006, this painting is one of four works by Kandinsky in the Cerruti Collection. 

Vivian Endicott Barnett 

¹ Roethel, Benjamin 1982, vol. I, nos. 242-245, 251- 252. 

² Ibid., nos. 215, 233, 235, 247-249.