Neue Künstlervereinigung München

also: N.K.V.M. · New Artists' Association Munich

school 1909-1912 Germany Europe

The Neue Künstlervereinigung München (New Artists' Association Munich) was founded in January 1909 out of the Munich circle around Marianne von Werefkin's salon, whose members had called themselves the Brotherhood of St. Luke. Led by its first chairman Wassily Kandinsky, the registered association pushed for exhibitions and for art that fused outer impressions with inner experience - a striving its charter called artistic synthesis. Its jury-free four-square-metre clause gave members unusual freedom, but the group was pulled in two directions: Kandinsky's painting moved rapidly toward abstraction while more conservative members demanded preferably understandable works. Three touring exhibitions followed (from December 1909, September 1910, and December 1911), the second showing French and Russian avant-gardists such as Picasso and Braque alongside the Munich members. When the conservative wing prevailed, Kandinsky, Münter and their allies left and mounted the first Der Blaue Reiter exhibition in parallel.

Signet der Neuen Künstlervereinigung München (N.K.V.M.) aus dem Jahre 1909
Signet der Neuen Künstlervereinigung München (N.K.V.M.) aus dem Jahre 1909Public domain (credit: Wassily Kandinsky, + 1944) · source

Defining characteristics

  • Bold, non-naturalistic color laid in patches, drawn from Fauvism and Post-Impressionism
  • Simplified, emphatic figure and landscape forms over academic finish
  • Lively, visible brushwork and sketchlike surfaces
  • Compositions distilling observed reality toward its expressive essentials
  • A visible arc toward abstraction, clearest in Kandinsky's work of 1910-11
  • Varied output across members, from near-realism to emerging abstraction

Key figures

  • Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) — Founding chairman who pushed the group toward abstraction before leaving to create Der Blaue Reiter
  • Marianne von Werefkin (1860-1938) — Russian painter whose Munich salon seeded the association
  • Alexej von Jawlensky (1864-1941) — Second chairman of the association and the circle's leading colourist
  • Gabriele Münter (1877-1962) — Painter and patron of the circle who later preserved its legacy in Murnau
  • Alfred Kubin (1877-1959) — Founding member whose dark symbolist drawing carried Expressionist unease

Example works

  • Signet of the Neue Künstlervereinigung München — Wassily Kandinsky (1909)
  • Das Neue Bild (The New Picture) — Neue Künstlervereinigung München (1911)

Sources

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