Franz Marc was born on February 8, 1880 in Munich, Germany. When he was
twenty years old, he decided to become a painter after orginially
attending school to study philosophy and biology. Marc began his art
schooling at the Akademie der Bildenden Kunste in Munich. His professors
were Gabriel von Hackl and Wilhelm von Dietz. Marc’s earliest works were
Munich landscapes. One of his early paintings, Portrait of the Artist’s
Mother, shows that he already had mastery of the traditional artistic
styles. Upon returning to Munich from a trip to Paris in 1903, Marc
stopped his studies at the Akademie and opened a studio at
Kaulbachstrasse.
In 1906, Marc took a holiday with his brother, Paul, and went to Greece.
In 1907, Marc returned to Paris and fell deeply in love with Egyptian
and medieval sculptures and with the works of Vincent van Gogh and
Gauguin. He spent the summer of 1908 with his future wife, Maria Franck,
studying nature in Lenggries in Bavaria. He spent extraordinary
amounts of time studying horses, pigs, cows, deer, and other animals,
because he believed that they were of a purer, less corrupt nature than
man. The time he spent studying the animals led to his painting, Cats
on a Red Cloth, his first picture using many intense colours.
Another painter, August Macke, and his uncle, Berhard Koehler, visited
Marc in January of 1910. Marc and Macke soon became close friends.
Marc exhibited for the first time at the Brakl’s modern art gallery in
the Goethestrasse in Munich in February 1910. In July, Marc visited
Koehler was was given a monthly salary from Koehler provided that
Koehler have an option of Marc’s future work. The Neue
Kunstlervereinigung Munchen (NKVM) fascinated Marc and he met the
painters in this group: Kandinsky, Alexei Jawlenski, Gabriele Munter,
Marianne Werefkin and others. In February 1911, Marc became a member
of NKVM. He soon became friends with Kandinsky, because they had
similar feelings about the style they wanted in their artwork. Both
wanted to produce a spiritual message within their artwork and this
caused a rift between them and the other members of the NKVM. This
rife caused Marc and Kandinsky to resign from the group and start their
own exhibition, Der Blaue Reiter. Marc had four pictures in this
exhibition. This exhibition also produced an almanac by the same name,
which is seen as one of the leading artistic manifestos of the 1900s.
Marc wrote the essays, “Geistige Guter,” “Die Wilden Deutschlands,”
“Zwei Bilder,“ and a reproduction of his painting, The Steer, is
included in the almanac.
In 1912, Marc and Macke traveled to Paris to meet Robert Delaunay, where
he introduced the two artists to French Cubism. This visit led to
Marc’s painting one of his major works, The Tiger. In 1913, Marc
painted Tirol, Tower of Blue Horses, Fate of Animals, and Picture with
Cattle, which are all considered to be some of his most important works.
In 1913, Marc helped Herwarth Walden organize the first Deutscher
Herbstsalon in Berlin. He moved from Sindelsdorf to Ried, near
Benediktbeuern, in 1914. Then he tried to stage Shakespeare’s The
Tempest at the urging of his friend, Hugo Ball; the play never happened.
Before the outbreak of World War I, Marc painted Birds and Fighting Forms.
When the war began, Marc volunteered for service. Only his letters and
his sketchbook remain as a pictorial representation of the last period
of his life. Franz Marc died near Verdun on March 4, 1916, only a short
sixteen years after he began his artistic career.
