Franz Marc

Franz Marc prints bring the blue horses, red deer and yellow cows of one of German Expressionism's best-loved painters into your home. Marc co-founded the Blue Rider circle in Munich and gave each colour a meaning, so his animals glow with feeling rather than copying nature. Our collection of more than 100 fine art prints covers his famous horses, quiet sleeping animals, dreamlike landscapes and the near-abstract canvases of his last years.

About Franz Marc

Franz Marc was born in Munich on 8 February 1880. His father, Wilhelm Marc, was a landscape painter. After a year of military service, Franz studied at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts under Gabriel von Hackl and Wilhelm von Diez, but he left in 1903, disappointed with the teaching.

Trips to France in 1903 and 1907 changed his direction. In Paris he copied paintings in the museums, and the work of Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin made a strong impression on him. In 1910 he moved to the village of Sindelsdorf in Upper Bavaria with the painter Maria Franck, whom he married in 1913. Also in 1910, he began a close friendship with August Macke.

In 1911 Marc and Wassily Kandinsky founded the Blue Rider (Der Blaue Reiter), a group that held its first exhibition in Munich that December and published an almanac in May 1912. Meeting Robert Delaunay in 1912 pushed his work toward Cubist fragmentation and stronger colour. In 1914 he bought a house in Ried, near Kochel am See.

When the First World War began, Marc was drafted as a cavalryman. He was killed by a shell fragment near Verdun on 4 March 1916, aged 36, shortly before he was due to be withdrawn from combat. In 1937 the Nazis labelled his work "degenerate" and removed around 130 pieces from German museums.

Style and Subjects

Animals are the heart of Marc's work: horses above all, but also deer, foxes, cows, cats, tigers and dogs, usually set in nature. He painted them in flat, glowing colour with rounded, rhythmic outlines, so that the animal and the landscape around it seem to flow together. In his later paintings the forms break into crystal-like planes, and by 1914, in works such as Fighting Forms, the animals almost disappear into pure abstraction.

Colour carried meaning for Marc. In a 1910 letter to Macke he described blue as the masculine, spiritual principle, yellow as the feminine, gentle principle, and red as heavy matter that the other two had to overcome. That is why his horses are blue and his cows yellow: the colour tells you what the animal stands for.

Famous Works

• Blue Horse I (1911), Lenbachhaus, Munich. A single young blue horse stands against red and yellow hills, one of Marc's best-known images of the spiritual "blue" animal.
• The Large Blue Horses (1911), Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. Three blue horses fold into one another and echo the curves of the hills behind them.
• The Yellow Cow (1911), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. A bright yellow cow leaps through a colourful landscape, Marc's picture of joyful, gentle energy.
• Dog Lying in the Snow (1911), Städel Museum, Frankfurt. A pale dog curls up asleep on soft snow in a calm, quiet composition.
• The Dream (1912), Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid. A seated nude, horses and a lion share a dreamlike landscape in strong, interlocking colour.
• The Tiger (1912), Lenbachhaus, Munich. A crouching yellow tiger is built from sharp, angular planes that show Cubism's influence on Marc.
• Fate of the Animals (1913), Kunstmuseum Basel. A dramatic, splintered forest scene in red and dark tones, painted the year before the war.
• Deer in the Forest II (1914), Kunsthalle Karlsruhe. Deer rest among trees broken into coloured, crystal-like shapes.

Decorating with Marc Prints

Marc's horses and cows are made for rooms with energy: a living room, an entry hall or a bright kitchen. Blue Horse I or Red and Blue Horse pair well with deep blue, mustard or terracotta, and they hold their own against plain white walls.

For bedrooms and reading corners, look to his quieter pictures, such as Dog Lying in the Snow, Two Deer Lying Down or Sleeping Shepherdess, which have softer colour and a restful mood. The angular later works, like Fate of the Animals or Deer in the Forest II, look striking in a modern study or above a sofa, especially next to other Blue Rider prints by Kandinsky or Macke.

FAQ

What art movement was Franz Marc part of?

Franz Marc was a key figure of German Expressionism. In 1911 he co-founded the Blue Rider (Der Blaue Reiter) in Munich with Wassily Kandinsky, and the group's exhibitions travelled to Berlin, Cologne and Frankfurt.

What is Franz Marc's most famous painting?

His blue horse paintings are the best known, especially Blue Horse I (1911) in Munich and The Large Blue Horses (1911) in Minneapolis. The Yellow Cow and Fate of the Animals are also widely recognised.

Where can I see Franz Marc's original paintings?

The Lenbachhaus in Munich has the world's largest collection of Blue Rider art, including Blue Horse I and The Tiger. Other major works hang at the Guggenheim in New York, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Kunstmuseum Basel and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid.

Why did Franz Marc paint blue horses?

Marc gave colours symbolic meanings. Blue stood for the masculine and spiritual, so his blue horses express an inner, spiritual nature rather than how horses really look. Yellow stood for the feminine and gentle, and red for heavy matter.

Related Artists

• Wassily Kandinsky — co-founded the Blue Rider with Marc in 1911
• August Macke — close friend from 1910 and fellow Blue Rider painter
• Robert Delaunay — his colour and Cubist approach shaped Marc's later work
• Vincent van Gogh — a painter Marc admired, whose work struck him in Paris in 1907