Franz Marc and Der Blaue Reiter

Marc and the Blue Rider circle

Der Blaue Reiter was a name shared by an almanac, exhibitions and a network of artists who sought new ways to join colour, form and spiritual experience. Franz Marc’s part was practical as well as artistic: he co-edited the book with Wassily Kandinsky, helped organise the exhibitions and brought his own painting and printmaking into the exchange. The project took shape in Munich during 1911–12, drawing on earlier conversations among Kandinsky, Gabriele Münter, Alexej Jawlensky, Marianne von Werefkin and others. It was never a set of identical pictures by a fixed roster of members. ^{[1] [2]}

The title’s English translation is The Blue Rider. It can lead to confusion because Marc painted blue horses and Kandinsky often painted riders. Kandinsky later recalled that both men loved blue, while Marc loved horses and he loved riders. That anecdote explains a memorable name, but the work they made together involved much more than combining two motifs. ^[2]

Watch: Franz Marc

Explore Marc’s blue horses, the Blue Rider circle and the move towards abstraction in English-language videos.

Franz Marc, Blue Horses and Der Blaue Reiter

The Canvas

An English-language introduction to Marc’s blue horses, animals, spirituality and the Blue Rider.

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▶01 · Marc and his horsesFranz Marc, Blue Horses and Der Blaue ReiterThe Canvas▶02 · The Blue RiderWho were the Blue Rider?Tate▶03 · Towards abstractionThe Case for AbstractionThe Art Assignment · PBS Digital Studios

From an artists’ association to an editorial project

The Neue Künstlervereinigung München, or New Artists’ Association Munich, had provided an earlier forum for modern painters. In late 1911 a dispute over the jurying of Kandinsky’s work led him and Marc to break away and organise an exhibition under the name of the editors of Der Blaue Reiter. Gabriele Münter and others were closely involved. The first show opened at Galerie Thannhauser on 18 December 1911 and ran into early January 1912. The speed of its preparation was part of the story: artists needed a place for work that the old association’s jury had rejected. ^{[3] [1]}

The exhibition brought together artists with different backgrounds and pictorial methods. Kandinsky and Marc did not ask every contributor to paint blue animals or pursue a single visual formula. Their editorial frame created a meeting point for paintings that could challenge academic naturalism in distinct ways. Marc’s own Blue Horse I of 1911 illustrates how an animal could become a focus for expressive colour; Münter and Kandinsky were making other kinds of modern picture. The shared interest lay in the possibilities of art beyond faithful copying of the visible world. ^{[1] [4]}

The second exhibition, Der Blaue Reiter: Schwarz-Weiss, ran at Galerie Hans Goltz from 12 February to 18 March 1912. Its title means “Black and White,” but the show centred on graphic arts and also included works on paper made with colour. That shift widened the range of media and contributors. Marc was active in choosing artists and works, and his own woodcuts connected the exhibitions to his development as a printmaker. The two shows were related projects, not repetitions of the same display. ^{[5] [6]}

The almanac of 1912

Kandinsky and Marc developed an almanac alongside the exhibitions. Piper published it in May 1912, with financial support from Bernhard Koehler. It brought together essays, paintings, folk art, children’s art, music and work from different cultures and times. MoMA describes it as a deliberately wide-ranging book rather than a narrow catalogue of one local group. Marc wrote for it, helped edit and select material, and contributed the Fabeltier woodcut to special editions. ^{[2] [1]}

The book’s physical forms varied. MoMA records ordinary, deluxe and museum editions, with original woodcuts by Marc and Kandinsky included only in the special versions. A second edition appeared in 1914 without those prints. Anyone describing a particular copy needs to know which version it is. This material difference is one reason to see the almanac as an object made by artists and publishers, not just a famous title in the history of a movement. ^{[2] [7]}

The blue rider on the cover was designed by Wassily Kandinsky. Lenbachhaus catalogues his 1912 colour woodcut cover separately from Marc’s contributions. The familiar cover can illustrate the collaboration if it is captioned correctly; it should not be presented as a Franz Marc painting. Marc’s role in the almanac lies in co-editing, writing, choosing material and making his own work for certain copies. ^{[8] [2]}

Marc’s network and work

Marc’s friendship with August Macke helped connect the project to artists beyond Munich. Bernhard Koehler, Macke’s relative, bought work and supported publication. Marc and Kandinsky continued to exchange ideas with Münter, Werefkin, Jawlensky and others; Paul Klee and Alfred Kubin were among the artists whose graphic work entered the wider exhibition circle. The name Der Blaue Reiter is often attached to a short list of famous figures, but the exhibitions and book show a more varied, changing network. ^{[1] [5]}

Marc’s paintings from these years show why the network mattered to him without turning every work into an illustration of a doctrine. The Large Blue Horses gave a group of animals a broad rhythmic form. Tiger pushed a recognisable body into angular space. In the Rain took up a human-and-dog scene through intersecting lines that the Lenbachhaus relates to Futurism. The project provided space for such experiments and for looking at work from outside the immediate circle. ^{[9] [10] [11]}

The first exhibition travelled beyond Munich, and Marc helped organise other major modern-art shows, including the 1912 Sonderbund exhibition in Cologne and the 1913 Erster Deutscher Herbstsalon in Berlin. War broke the network’s activity in 1914. Macke died that September; Marc was killed in 1916. These losses ended the living collaboration, while the almanac, records of the exhibitions and the works themselves continued to shape how later audiences understood the period. ^{[3] [6]}

To explore Marc’s side of the project, move between the paintings, the original prints and his letters and notes. Each medium shows a different part of his work with Kandinsky and the wider circle. Der Blaue Reiter was an editorial and exhibition experiment that let those parts speak beside many other voices, rather than a single style Marc could simply apply to every canvas. ^{[2] [1]}