Gabriele Münter

"In 1908, for instance, when I painted my Blue Mountain, I had learned the trick. It came to me as easily and naturally as song to a bird. After that, I worked more and more on my own. When Kandinsky became increasingly interested in abstract art, I also tried my hand, of course, at a few improvisations of the same general nature as his. But I believe I had developed a figurative style of my own, or at least one that suited my temperament, and I have remained faithful to it ever since, with occasional short holidays in the realm of abstraction."

"As a child, I devoted much of my leisure to drawing sketches of relatives and friends, familiar sights and scenes, a view that suddenly moved me or appealed to me. I always concentrated on depicting nature as I saw or felt it, in terms of lines, and obtaining a kind of psychological likeness which would convey the personality of my model or the mood of the moment."

"But we had no contact with the painters of the Dachau and Worpswede School [where a. o. Paula Modersohn-Becker was settled as starting woman artist]. It was only much later, for instance, that we discovered that Hoelzel had already been experimenting with non-objective compositions as early as 1908. We [the Blaue Reiter artists] were only a group of friends who shared a common passion for painting as a form of self-expression."

"Each of us [the Der Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider) artists] was interested in the work of the other members of our group, much as each of us was also interested in the health and happiness of the others. But we were still far from considering ourselves as a group or a school of art.. .I dont think we were ever as programmatic in out theories, as competitive or a self-assertive, as some of the modern [art] schools of Paris."

"I was never interested in being just modern – I mean in creating a new style. I simply painted in whatever style seemed to suit me best. But Kandinsky was a thinker and had to express his ideas in words, so he constantly formulated new theories of art which he liked to discuss with Kubín, who was also a thinker.."

"Our sketchbooks and studies – as well as the paintings and photos, convey the detail of our [Gabriele with Kandinsky, 1905] Tunisian impressions. At times we got along well – at times not at all – we took walks in the city and also in the Belvedere park – it was never boring with my beloved [ Kandinsky ], but we didnt made contact with any other people; he never wanted it."

"I think we were all more interested in being honest than in being modern. Thats why there could be such great differences between the styles of the various members of our group.. .They had great faith in each other. I think that each of them knew that the other, as an artist, was absolutely honest. Whenever Kubín came to Munich from his nearby country retreat, they [Kandinsky and Kubin] spent many hours together, and I wish I had been able to take down in shorthand some of their conversations. Their ideas about art and life were so different."

"My main difficulty was that I could not paint fast enough. My pictures are all moments of my life – I mean instantaneous visual experiences, generally noted very rapidly and spontaneously. When I begin to paint, its like leaping suddenly into deep waters, and I never know beforehand whether I will be able to swim. Well, it was Kandinsky who taught me the technique of swimming. I mean that he taught me to work fast enough, and with enough self-assurance, to be able to achieve this kind of rapid and spontaneous recording of moments of life."

"Well, when we [Kandinsky and Gabriéle Münter] first met, Munich was still very much a center of plein-air painting [painting in open air], and Kandinsky himself was a plain-air painter too, to some extent. We used to go out sketching and painting together in the countryside [around Murnau], and he painted a picture of me sketching, and I also did one of him [on board in oil]. That was a long time ago in 1903. It was only some ten years later, when he painted his first Improvisations that he began to work exclusively in his studio."

"You [the interviewer Edouard Roditi, in 1958] have probably understood that I had always been mainly a plain-air painter, though I also painted portraits and still-life compositions. At first I experienced great difficulty with my brushwork – I mean with that the French call la touche de pinceau. So Kandinsky taught me how to achieve the effects that I wanted with a palette knife. In the view from my window in Sèvres, that I painted in 1906, when we were together in France, you can see how well he taught me. Later of course, here in Murnau, I learned to handle brushes, too, but I managed this by following Kandinskys example, first with a palette knife, than with brushes."

"Suddenly I felt that my old dream was closer to coming true. You know that I dreamt of painting a big picture expressing joy, the happiness of life and the universe. Suddenly I feel the harmony of colors and forms that come from this world of joy."

"..the rejection of impressionistic copies of nature and a move towards sensing the content, abstraction, – expressing the extract.."