Franz Moritz Wilhelm Marc (8 February 1880 – 4 March 1916) was a German painter and

printmaker Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand processed technique ...

, one of the key figures of

German Expressionism Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radi ...

. He was a founding member of '' Der Blaue Reiter'' (The Blue Rider), a journal whose name later became synonymous with the circle of artists collaborating in it. His mature works mostly are animals, and are known for bright colors. He was drafted to serve in the

German Army The German Army (, 'army') is the land component of the armed forces of Federal Republic of Germany, Germany. The present-day German Army was founded in 1955 as part of the newly formed West German together with the German Navy, ''Marine'' (G ...

at the beginning of World War I, and died two years later at the

Battle of Verdun The Battle of Verdun ( ; ) was fought from 21 February to 18 December 1916 on the Western Front (World War I), Western Front in French Third Republic, France. The battle was the longest of the First World War and took place on the hills north ...

. In the 1930s, the Nazis named him a degenerate artist as part of their suppression of modern art. However, most of his work survived World War II, securing his legacy. His work is now exhibited in many eminent galleries and museums. His major paintings have attracted large sums, with a record of £42,654,500 for ''Die Füchse'' (''The Foxes'') in 2022.

Early life

Franz Marc was born in 1880 in Munich, the then capital of the

Kingdom of Bavaria The Kingdom of Bavaria ( ; ; spelled ''Baiern'' until 1825) was a German state that succeeded the former Electorate of Bavaria in 1806 and continued to exist until 1918. With the unification of Germany into the German Empire in 1871, the kingd ...

. His father, Wilhelm Marc, was a professional landscape painter; his mother, Sophie, was a homemaker and a devout, socially liberal

Calvinist Reformed Christianity, also called Calvinism, is a major branch of Protestantism that began during the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. In the modern day, it is largely represented by the Continental Reformed Protestantism, Continenta ...

. At the age of 17 Marc wanted to study theology, as his older brother Paul had. Two years later, however, he enrolled in the arts program of Munich University. He was first required to serve in the military for a year, after which, in 1900, he began studies instead at the

Academy of Fine Arts, Munich The Academy of Fine Arts, Munich (, also known as Munich Academy) is one of the oldest and most significant art academies in Germany. It is located in the Maxvorstadt district of Munich, in Bavaria, Germany. In the second half of the 19th centur ...

, where his teachers included Gabriel von Hackl and Wilhelm von Diez. In 1903 and 1907, he spent time in France, particularly in Paris, visiting the museums in the city and copying many paintings, a traditional way for artists to study and develop technique. In Paris, Marc frequented artistic circles, meeting numerous artists and the actress

Sarah Bernhardt Sarah Bernhardt (; born Henriette-Rosine Bernard; 22 October 1844 – 26 March 1923) was a French stage actress who starred in some of the most popular French plays of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including by Alexandre Dumas fils, ...

. He discovered a strong affinity for the work of painter

Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2,100 artworks ...

. After the 1903 trip, he ceased attending the Academy of Fine Arts. During his 20s, Marc was involved in a number of stormy relationships, including an affair lasting for many years with Annette Von Eckhardt, a married antique dealer nine years his senior. He married twice, first to Marie Schnür, then to Maria Franck; both were artists.

Career

In 1906, Marc traveled with his elder brother Paul, a

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

expert, to

Thessaloniki Thessaloniki (; ), also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, Salonika, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece (with slightly over one million inhabitants in its Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area) and the capital cit ...

Mount Athos Mount Athos (; ) is a mountain on the Athos peninsula in northeastern Greece directly on the Aegean Sea. It is an important center of Eastern Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodox monasticism. The mountain and most of the Athos peninsula are governed ...

, and various other Greek locations. A few years later, in 1910, Marc developed an important friendship with the artist August Macke. In 1910 Marc painted ''Nude with Cat'' and ''Grazing Horses'', and showed works in the second exhibition of the '' Neue Künstlervereinigung'' (New Artists' Association, of which Marc was briefly a member) at the Thannhauser Galleries in

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

Der Blaue Reiter

In 1911, Marc founded the '' Der Blaue Reiter'' journal, which became the center of an artist circle, along with Macke,

Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky ( – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter and art theorist. Kandinsky is generally credited as one of the pioneers of abstract art, abstraction in western art. Born in Moscow, he spent his childhood in ...

, and others who had decided to split off from the ''Neue Künstlervereinigung'' movement. Though Marc showed several of his works in the first ''Der Blaue Reiter'' exhibition at the Thannhauser Galleries in Munich between December 1911 and January 1912, as it was the apex of the German expressionist movement, the exhibit also showed in Berlin, Cologne, Hagen, and Frankfurt. In 1912, Marc met

Robert Delaunay Robert Delaunay (; 12 April 1885 – 25 October 1941) was a French artist of the School of Paris movement; who, with his wife Sonia Delaunay and others, co-founded the Orphism (art), Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and g ...

, whose use of color and the Cubist method was a major influence on Marc's work; fascinated by

Futurism Futurism ( ) was an Art movement, artistic and social movement that originated in Italy, and to a lesser extent in other countries, in the early 20th century. It emphasized dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, and objects such as the ...

and Cubism, Marc created art that increasingly was stark in nature, painting natural abstract forms which found spiritual value in color. He painted ''The Tiger'' and ''Red Deer'' in 1912 and ''

The Tower of Blue Horses ''The Tower of Blue Horses'' () is a 1913 oil painting by the German Expressionist artist Franz Marc. It has been called one of his best works, but went missing in 1945. Description ''The Tower of Blue Horses'' was a large work, . Most of the pi ...

'', '' The Foxes'', and '' Fate of the Animals'' in 1913.

Wartime

Military NACHLASS of the painter Franz Marc

With the outbreak of

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

in 1914, Marc was drafted into the

Imperial German Army The Imperial German Army (1871–1919), officially referred to as the German Army (), was the unified ground and air force of the German Empire. It was established in 1871 with the political unification of Germany under the leadership of Kingdom o ...

as a cavalryman. By February 1916, as shown in a letter to his wife, he had gravitated to

military camouflage Military camouflage is the use of camouflage by an Military, armed force to protect personnel and equipment from observation by enemy forces. In practice, this means applying colour and materials to military equipment of all kinds, including ...

. His technique for hiding artillery from aerial observation was to paint canvas covers in broadly pointillist style. He took pleasure in creating a series of nine such tarpaulin covers in styles varying "from Manet to Kandinsky", suspecting that the latter could be the most effective against aircraft flying at or higher. By 1916, he had been promoted to lieutenant and awarded the

Iron Cross The Iron Cross (, , abbreviated EK) was a military decoration in the Kingdom of Prussia, the German Empire (1871–1918), and Nazi Germany (1933–1945). The design, a black cross pattée with a white or silver outline, was derived from the in ...

. After mobilization of the German Army, the government identified notable artists to be withdrawn from combat for their own safety. Marc was on the list but was struck in the head and killed instantly by a shell splinter during the

in 1916 before orders for reassignment could reach him.

Style

Marc made some sixty prints in

woodcut Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas that ...

and

lithography Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the miscibility, immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by ...

. Most of his mature work portrays animals, usually in natural settings. His work is characterized by bright primary color, an almost cubist portrayal of animals, stark simplicity and a profound sense of emotion. Even in his own time, his work attracted notice in influential circles. Marc gave an emotional meaning or purpose to the colors he used in his work: blue was used to portray masculinity and spirituality, yellow represented feminine joy, and red encased the sound of violence. One of Marc's best-known paintings is ''Tierschicksale'' (''Animal Destinies'' or '' Fate of the Animals''), which hangs in the Kunstmuseum Basel. Marc had completed the work in 1913, when "the tension of impending cataclysm had pervaded society", as one art historian noted. On the back of the canvas, Marc wrote, "Und Alles Sein ist flammend Leid" ("And all being is flaming agony"). Serving in World War I, Marc wrote to his wife about the painting, " tis like a premonition of this warhorrible and shattering. I can hardly conceive that I painted it."

Nazi Germany and the seizure of so-called "degenerate" art

After the National Socialists took power, they suppressed modern art; in 1936 and 1937, the Nazis condemned the late Marc as an ''entarteter Künstler'' (degenerate artist) and ordered approximately 130 of his works removed from exhibition in German museums. The ''Blue Horses'' was auctioned off at the infamous Theodor Fischer gallery " degenerate art" sale in Lucerne, on 29 June 1939, and acquired by the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Liège. His painting ''Landscape With Horses'' was discovered in 2012 along with more than a thousand other paintings, in the Munich apartment of Cornelius Gurlitt whose father, Hildebrand Gurlitt, was one of Hitler's four official art dealers of Modernist art the Nazis called "degenerate" which the Nazis sold or traded to raise cash for the Third Reich. In 2017, the family of Kurt Grawi demanded the restitution of Marc's painting '' The Foxes'' (1913) from Düsseldorf's Kunstpalast. Grawi, a German Jewish banker who had owned the painting before the Nazis rose to power was arrested on

Kristallnacht ( ) or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation from the Hitler Youth and German civilia ...

and incarcerated in

Sachsenhausen concentration camp Sachsenhausen () or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a German Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May later that year. It mainly held political prisoners t ...

in 1938, before he managed to flee to Chile in 1939. The painting passed through Galerie Nierendorf, and William and Charlotte Dieterle, according to the German Lost Art Foundation. In 2021, the German Advisory Commission recommended that the city of Düsseldorf restitute the painting to Grawi's heirs; this was done, and the painting was sold at Christie's by Grawi's heirs in 2022.

Legacy and honors

Marc's family house in Munich is marked with a historical plaque. The Franz Marc Museum which is located in Kochel am See, opened in 1986 and is dedicated to the artist's life and work. It houses many of his paintings, and also works by other contemporary artists. In October 1998, several of Marc's paintings garnered record prices at Christie's art auction house in London, including ''Rote Rehe I'' (''Red Deer I''), which sold for $3.3 million. In October 1999, his ''Der Wasserfall'' (''The Waterfall'') was sold by Sotheby's in London for $5.06 million. This price set a record for Franz Marc's work and for twentieth-century German painting. In 2008, the former record was again broken when Marc's ''Weidende Pferde III'' (''Grazing Horses III'') was sold for £12,340,500 ($24,376,190) at Sotheby's. This record was again beaten by the £42.6m sale of ''The Foxes'' in 2022.

Public collections

Among the public collections holding works by Franz Marc are : * Museum de Fundatie,

Zwolle Zwolle () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Northeastern Netherlands. It is the Capital city, capital of the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of Overijssel ...

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

* Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York * Franz Marc Museum in Kochel am See * Lenbachhaus,

Detroit Institute of Arts The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) is a museum institution located in Midtown Detroit, Michigan. It has list of largest art museums, one of the largest and most significant art collections in the United States. With over 100 galleries, it cove ...

Selected images

Franz Marc - Dog Lying in the Snow - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Liegender Hund im Schnee'', ''Dog Lying in the Snow'' (1911), Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main Franz Marc-The Yellow Cow-1911.jpg, ''Die gelbe Kuh'', ''The Yellow Cow'' (1911), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Marc-blue-black fox.jpg, ''Fuchs'', ''Fox'' (1911), Von der Heydt Museum in Wuppertal GUGG Young Boy with a Lamb; The Good Shepherd.jpg, ''Knabe mit Lamm; Der gute Hirte'', ''Young Boy with a Lamb; The Good Shepherd'' (1911), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Franz Marc- Die kleinen blauen Pferde.jpg, ''Die kleinen blauen Pferde'', ''The Little Blue Horses'' (1911), Staatsgalerie Stuttgart Franz Marc Roter Stier, 1912.jpg, ''Roter Stier'', ''Red Bull'' (1912),

Pushkin Museum The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts (, abbreviated as , ''GMII'') is the largest museum of European art in Moscow. It is located in Volkhonka street, just opposite the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. The International musical festival Sviatos ...

in Moscow Franz Marc - Der Traum - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Der Traum'', ''The Dream'' (1912),

Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum The Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum (, ; named after its founder, Baron Heinrich Thyssen, Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza), or simply the Thyssen, is an art museum in Madrid, Spain, located near the Museo del Prado, Prado Museum on one of the city ...

in Madrid Das Äffchen (Franz Marc, 1912).jpg, ''Das Äffchen'', ''The Little Monkey'' (1912), Lenbachhaus, Munich Franz Marc - The Foxes - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Die Füchse'', '' The Foxes'' (1913), private collection Marc, Franz - The Tiger - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Der Tiger'', ''The Tiger'' (1912), Lenbachhaus in Munich Franz Marc 029a.jpg, ''Der Turm der blauen Pferde'',
''

'' (1913),
missing since 1945 Franz Marc-The fate of the animals-1913.jpg, ''Tierschicksale'', '' Fate of the Animals'' (1913), Kunstmuseum Basel in Basel GUGG Dreaming Horse.jpg, ''Träumendes Pferd'', ''Dreaming Horse'' (1913), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Deer in Forest 1.jpg, Rehe im Walde I, ''Deer in Forest 1'' (1913), The Phillips Collection Franz Marc 020.jpg, ''Rehe im Walde (II)'', ''Deer in the Forest II'' (1914)

References

External links

Franz Marc Virtual Gallery

Gallery of Marc's work

WebMuseum Franz Marc Page

Franz Marc's Cats in Art
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Marc, Franz 1880 births 1916 deaths Artists from Munich Artists from the Kingdom of Bavaria 20th-century German painters 20th-century German male artists 20th-century German printmakers German male painters German Expressionist painters German modern painters Academy of Fine Arts, Munich alumni Camoufleurs Military personnel of Bavaria German military personnel killed in World War I German Army personnel of World War I