by Tom Gurney
Tom Gurney BSc (Hons) is an art history expert with over 20 years experience
Published on June 19, 2020 / Updated on October 17, 2026
Email: tomgurney1@gmail.com / Phone: +44 7429 011000
Looking at Two Cats (Colour Lithograph)
Two cats occupy almost the whole of Franz Marc’s Zwei Katzen (Two Cats), a colour lithograph made in 1909–10. The existing “Two Cats Sketch” page shows this composition: a dark cat turns inward before a pale cat lying behind it. The title “sketch” obscures the print medium. Lenbachhaus catalogues an impression as a colour lithograph, and Galerie Kornfeld records the image as a 1909–10 lithograph used for the poster of Marc’s first solo exhibition at Josef Brakl’s Munich gallery in 1910. [1] [2]
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The dark cat stands with its back curving across the lower half of the image. Its head turns toward the other animal, whose pale chest and face occupy the upper right. The space between them is small but active: one cat's muzzle nearly reaches the other's body. The print relies on sweeping contours and dense short marks rather than a softly modelled surface. Cream, ochre and brown separate the animals while keeping both within the same close enclosure. [3]
The square image gives the cats little room to escape its edges. A light curved shape above the darker head repeats the arc of its back, while the pale cat's front paws settle at the lower right. Marc turns a domestic observation into an arrangement of interlocking shapes. The image can be read quickly as a pair of cats, then more slowly as a rhythm of curved backs, heads and paws. [3]
A printed image with several impressions
Lithography allowed this composition to appear in more than one impression. The Lenbachhaus record describes a large poster-sized sheet; Kornfeld describes a smaller impression and connects the image to Marc's 1910 exhibition poster. The reproduced image on this page does not establish which surviving impression supplied the art-book scan, so its paper size and current owner are left unspecified. It is also distinct from Marc’s later Two Cats, Blue and Yellow, an oil painting of 1912. [1] [2]
Artwork Directory
This source-checked selection contains 192 identified works and print designs from the current Franz Marc research set. It is a curated selection, not a complete catalogue raisonné. Some works link to their article here; others link to a collection record. Unresolved identifications are omitted.
Discussion
A dark cat curves toward a pale cat in Marc’s 1909–10 colour lithograph.
Reader Insights
Observation
Which marks make the dark cat’s back and tail legible?
Comparison
How do these cats differ from those in Two Cats, Blue and Yellow?
Interpretation
What does the tight square framing add to the encounter?
Join the Conversation
Which detail changed the way you saw this work? Share a close observation or a comparison with another Marc picture.
References
- Lenbachhaus collection. View source.
- Galerie Kornfeld catalogue. View source.
- Exact public-domain reproduction. View source.
- Related artwork image, Yellow Cow: Photograph by Dr. Alexey Yakovlev; resized without crop or colour change, CC BY-SA 2.0.
- Splash image: Franz Marc, Zwei Katzen (Two Cats), 1909–10, colour lithograph. Exact art-book scan from Wikimedia Commons, marked public domain; specific impression unidentified. Image file and rights.
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