Gabriele Münter was the member of the Blue Rider group that never got recognition for her work until much, much later because she was a woman.

It’s a tale as old as time. Woman has extraordinary talent. Woman hangs out with men of equal if not inferior talent. Woman gets outshone because of sexism. We all know many similar stories so now we have to go back and dig these women out of the hole that they were buried in and give them the recognition they deserve! Feminist art history at its best.

Münter was born in Berlin to wealthy, Protestant parents. She grew up taking piano lessons and soon showed interest in art. Usually women were discouraged from entering the arts, but her parents weren’t normal parents, they were cool parents and they let her attend Damen-Kunstschule (Ladies Art School in Dusseldorf). When she graduated, Münter went to visit her relative in Arkansas, Missouri, and Texas. After that she would have attended the Munich Academy of Fine Arts, but they didn’t enroll women.

Instead she started school in 1902 at the Phalanx School, where she was taught by none other than Wassily Kandinsky. The two hit it off professionally and personally and started a love affair that would last over a decade. Around 1904, Kandinsky separated from his wife and he and Münter lived in sin together (unmarried)– a huge no-no at the time. The two of them started the Neue Künstlervereinigung or New Artists’ Association in 1909 but abandoned it for Der Blaue Reiter or the Blue Rider group in 1911. They were buddies with artists like Paul Klee, Auguste Macke, and Franz Marc. Personally, Münter was influenced by Van Gogh and Alexei von Jawlensky, who was known as the “Russian Matisse.” All was well until in 1914 when World War I broke out.

Münter and Kandinsky tried to move to Switzerland, but because Kandinsky was Russian he was considered an enemy. Their relationship was very much on the rocks when Kandinsky moved to Moscow and Münter moved to Stockholm. They met one more time in Stockholm and then never saw each other again. Two years later Kandinsky, at the age of 51, married a 24-year-old Russian girl. Münter was heartbroken and stopped making art for an entire decade. She traveled a lot though and eventually met a German art historian by the name of Johannes Eichner. He was the one who got her to paint again and was her partner until she died in 1962.