Munich gallery Thomas celebrates Maria Marc's art: The Blue Rider

Created: 01/30/2022, 17:39

By: Katja Kraft

Great love: Maria and Franz Marc 1908 in Lenggries.

© German Art Archive

Maria Marc, Franz Marc's wife, was a great artist herself.

High time to celebrate them.

The Thomas Gallery in Munich is now doing this with an exhibition.

On view until March 26, 2022.

This damn war!

Imagine if 1914 had not taken up arms - how that would have changed the world.

In the small as in the big.

The artist couple Maria and Franz Marc are examples of the force with which the battles of the centuries have shaped entire generations.

It is very likely that Maria Marc (1876-1955) would have created a larger work without the world conflagration.

Because when Franz, the man she lived with, fell on March 4, 1916, Maria stopped painting.

A creative caesura.

When he was transferred to the French front, Franz Marc suspected that this would mean his end.

And so, without expressing this concern directly, he wrote letters to Maria, persuading Maria to go to her friend Elisabeth Erdmann-Macke, August's wife.

He didn't want her to be alone when the news of his death reached her.

Colorful: the art historians Annegret Hoberg and Ralph Melcher in front of Maria Marc's "Christmas Angel with Bethlehem Scene" in the Thomas Gallery. © sleep

It is the stories behind the images that often make the art shine even more impressively.

It is therefore doubly a pity that the Thomas Gallery, which is now hosting a non-commercial exhibition on the work of Maria Marc, cannot offer guided tours.

Silke Thomas regrets that the visitor regulations are so vague these days that planning was simply too uncertain.

But if you want to know more about Maria Marc, who made a decisive contribution to the fact that her husband's works are seen in the world after his death, you can pester the gallery staff with questions.

Because the house falls under the retail category, there are no corona restrictions on visiting.

Of course, Maria Marc worked in the artist circle of the Blue Rider

Maria, the wife of... A woman in the shadows, then? "It's a question of reception," says Blaue Reiter expert Annegret Hoberg. It is true that Maria Marc's work has only been discovered, or better: rediscovered, in recent years. “But back then, in the artists' circle of the emerging Blue Riders, she wasn't in the shadows. As a matter of course she was involved as a producer.” The works that she created are now to be brought more to the light. Her painting, weaving and embroidery art was first exhibited in 1995 in the Lenbachhaus, curated by Annegret Hoberg, then in 2004 in the Castle Museum in Murnau - and now in the Thomas Gallery. Condensed for a broad audience, this has been Silke Thomas' wish for a long time. "Women are finally getting the attention they deserve, and we want to support that."

View of the show with works by Maria Marc in the Thomas Gallery in Munich. © Gallery Thomas

Whoever walks through the exhibition room experiences the artistic development of Maria Marc with every step from picture to picture. From the Munich school of painting, where she worked in the vicinity of the plaice - open-air painting with feather-light plays of light and shadow - up to the years with Franz Marc. Barely eleven were granted to the couple. But how great the effect on each other and on their respective art. As with Franz, one experiences in Maria's pictures how she is becoming more and more detached from naturalism, becoming more and more abstract. More courage to use colour. Her "Two Children between Flowers" (1912), for example: oscillating between light and dark. "And how she has the courage to give up the correct forms, allows this sloppiness, becomes more generous in her painting posture," enthuses Thomas.

Children have always fascinated the artist.

All the sadder that their marriage remained childless.

Maria and Franz both regretted it.

The show includes other children's pictures that she created in 1908.

On it, for example, little pigs that are oriented towards toys.

From the same series there is a picture with dancing sheep.

If you want to see them, simply stroll on to Munich's Lenbachhaus after visiting the gallery.

There they hang and still dance.

Despite all the horrors of this world.

Until March 26th in the Munich gallery Thomas, Türkenstraße 16 Munich, Mon.-Fri.

9am-6pm, Sat 10am-6pm;

Phone: 089/290 00 80. All further information here