Franz Marc
Born in Munich in 1880 as the son of a painter, Franz Marc, together with Wassily Kandinsky, is regarded as the founder of abstract art. He was a founding member of The Blue Rider, an association of German Expressionist artists. Having specialized in animal expression oil paintings, in which Cubist influences allow landscapes and animals to flow together, symbolized a virgin life-feeling and purity in Marc’s work. They constitute the transition to his abstract late period, in which he used pure form to discover the inner conformity behind things and the mysterious element in Nature. In 1914, Marc bought a house in Ried near Kochel, where he had often stayed to study Nature. In the same year, he was conscripted for military service and was killed at Verdun in 1916.
