Mia Münster (April 1, 1894 – May 21, 1970) was a German artist.

Life

Münster was born and grew up in

Sankt Wendel St. Wendel (; sometimes spelled in full as Sankt Wendel) is a town in northeastern Saarland. It is situated on the river Blies 36 km northeast of Saarbrücken, the capital of Saarland, and is named after Saint Wendelin of Trier. According t ...

Saarland Saarland (, ; ) is a state of Germany in the southwest of the country. With an area of and population of 990,509 in 2018, it is the smallest German state in area apart from the city-states of Berlin, Bremen, and Hamburg, and the smallest in ...

, Germany. In 1912 she moved to

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, seventh-largest city ...

and enrolled in an art school. She took lessons from the artists Otto Weil and Richard Wenzel until 1919, when she moved to Halle and studied until 1920 at the '' Leipzig Academy of Visual Arts''. After that she studied until 1922 at the ''School of Applied Arts'' 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 ...

(now part of the '' Academy of Fine Arts''). During this period she worked for various magazines as well as for the "Moewe-Filmverlag", a

cartoon A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently Animation, animated, in an realism (arts), unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or s ...

studio. In 1924 Münster obtained a teaching position at the newly founded ''State School of Arts and Crafts'' (Staatliche Schule für Kunst und Kunstgewerbe), now "Saar College of Visual Arts" in

Saarbrücken Saarbrücken (; Rhenish Franconian: ''Sabrigge'' ; ; ; ; ) is the capital and largest List of cities and towns in Germany, city of the state of Saarland, Germany. Saarbrücken has 181,959 inhabitants and is Saarland's administrative, commerci ...

. Over the following two years she studied at the Reimann School in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

, a private academy for decoration and

commercial art Commercial art is the art of creative services, referring to art created for commercial purposes, primarily advertising. Commercial art uses a variety of platforms (magazines, websites, apps, television, etc.) for viewers with the intent of promo ...

. She returned to Sankt Wendel from 1926 to 1928, and then back to Berlin until 1932. Subsequently, she returned home to Sankt Wendel again where she finally settled and worked as a free-lance artist. From 1940 on she traveled widely in

Lorraine Lorraine, also , ; ; Lorrain: ''Louréne''; Lorraine Franconian: ''Lottringe''; ; ; is a cultural and historical region in Eastern France, now located in the administrative region of Grand Est. Its name stems from the medieval kingdom of ...

, Italy, Spain and in various regions of France, from which she acquired influences for her painting. Mia Münster died at age 76 in 1970 in Sankt Wendel.

Work

Münster belonged to the generation of artists popularly termed the ''

lost generation The Lost Generation was the Demography, demographic Cohort (statistics), cohort that reached early adulthood during World War I, and preceded the Greatest Generation. The social generation is generally defined as people born from 1883 to 1900, ...

'', born roughly between 1890 and 1910. These artists received little or no respect in the art world in the period after

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

because

abstract art Abstract art uses visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a Composition (visual arts), composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. ''Abstract art'', ''non-figurative art'', ''non- ...

was fashionable and older artists, who still worked in figurative style, were mostly ignored. During her time in Berlin and Munich Münster made her living producing commercial art. She drew

fashion illustration Fashion illustration is the art of communicating fashion ideas in a visual form through the use of drawing tools or design-based software programs. It is mainly used by fashion designers to brainstorm their ideas on paper or digitally. Fashion ...

s and prepared designs and drawings for German entertainment magazines and satirical publications. In addition she produced illustrations for extravagant costumes and clothing for the special occasions which were popular in the "

Golden Twenties The Golden Twenties (), also known as the Happy Twenties (), was a five-year time period within the decade of the 1920s in Germany. The era began in 1924, after the end of the hyperinflation following World War I, and ended with the Wall Stree ...

". Münster captured the spirit of the times, marked initially by exuberance and later by insecurity and impoverishment, in many

drawing Drawing is a Visual arts, visual art that uses an instrument to mark paper or another two-dimensional surface, or a digital representation of such. Traditionally, the instruments used to make a drawing include pencils, crayons, and ink pens, some ...

watercolor Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (Commonwealth English; see American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin 'water'), is a painting metho ...

s, and sketches. After she had finally settled in Sankt Wendel she devoted herself to other themes. Her cycle of paintings ''Lorraine Images'' (Lothringer Bilder), created after a trip to the nearby Lorraine region of France, is ranked among her best work. A break in her artistic work followed; her earlier figurative work was followed by non-representational abstraction whose stylistic elements, especially

Cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement which began in Paris. It revolutionized painting and the visual arts, and sparked artistic innovations in music, ballet, literature, and architecture. Cubist subjects are analyzed, broke ...

, which she adopted under the influence of contemporary tastes. After this phase, roughly around the beginning of the 1960s, she came in contact with the technique that was new to her, called the

Monotype Monotyping is a type of printmaking made by drawing or painting on a smooth, non-absorbent surface. The surface, or matrix, was historically a copper etching plate, but in contemporary work it can vary from zinc or glass to acrylic glass. The ...

. Here she developed a unique, refined style, continuing with Abstractionism.

Honors and acknowledgements

* The ''Mia Münster House'' in Sankt Wendel, opened in 1989, was named after her. It houses the city library and the ''Sankt Wendel Museum'' with a permanent exhibition of her work. * To honor Münster, the city created the ''Mia Münster Prize'' to recognize outstanding artists from around the region.

Individual exhibitions

* 1964 St. Wendel * 1969 Old City Hall, St. Wendel * 1970 Elitzer Gallery, Saarbrücken * 1977 ''Galerie im Zwinger'', St. Wendel: Mia Münster retrospective * 1980 ''Galerie Bosener Mühle'', Bosen: Mia Münster retrospective * 1984 ''Galerie im Hof'', St. Wendel: Mia Münster 90th birthday celebration * 1994 Mia Münster House, St. Wendel: Mia Münster 100th birthday celebration * 1995 Mia Münster House, St. Wendel * 2000 ''Salzbrunnenhaus'', Sulzbach * 2002 Mia Münster House, St. Wendel: Fashion Design in the 1920s * 2010 Mia Münster House, St. Wendel: 180 works from her estate

Works in public spaces (selection)

* 1953 School for Learning Disabled (Baltersweiler): wall painting * 1953-54 Rastpfuhl Elementary and day school (Saarbrücken):

sgraffito (; ) is an artistic or decorative technique of scratching through a coating on a hard surface to reveal parts of another underlying coating which is in a contrasting colour. It is produced on walls by applying layers of plaster tinted in con ...

* 1955 Primary school (St. Wendel Bliesen): Mural * 1956 School of Home Economics (Freisen): Mural * 1957 Primary school (St. Wendel-Oberlinxweiler): Mural * 1958 Dr. Josef Bruch School (St. Wendel): column and wall decoration * 1960 Primary school (Grügelborn): Mural * 1960 Primary school (Schwarzenacker): Mural * 1961 Primary school (Bosen): mosaic wall * 1962 Nicholas Obertreis School (St. Wendel): mosaic wall decoration * 1962 Nicholas Obertreis School (St. Wendel): Stained glass window * 1963 primary school (Roschberg): Wall decoration * 1964 Wingert School (St. Wendel): Wall painting, * 1964 Primary and secondary school (Eiweiler): Wall decoration * 1964 County Commissioner's Office, large meeting room (St. Wendel): Wall decoration * 1966 Primary School (Oberkirchen): Wall mosaic and stained glass window * 1966 Primary school (Furschweiler): glass mosaics * 1968-69 Administration Building of '' Globus Handleshof'' (St. Wendel): Wall painting

References

External links

Saar Artists Encyclopedia (Künstlerlexikon Saar)
(text in German, but contains photos of a selection of Münster's work)
Museum St. Wendel:''Mia Münster''
(in German) {{DEFAULTSORT:Mia Munster 1894 births 1970 deaths People from Sankt Wendel (district) Academy of Fine Arts, Munich alumni