Comprehensive
information

A work dated by the artist is generally listed under that date. See the Signature / Label field to review this information. Additional dates may be based on external sources, art-historical literature, catalogues raisonnés, etc. A dash indicates a time period (e.g., "1910–1914"); a slash indicates an unspecified point in time within a date range (e.g., "1899/1901"). When no exact date or date range can be ascertained based on the available information, the artist’s dates of birth and death are given in the Date field to allow the work to be included in the timeline. For works by Paul Klee, the Date field usually also contains the historic inventory number assigned by the artist himself.

Information on media and techniques is given in accordance with art-historical convention but based, whenever possible, on the insights of the museum’s conservation department. We strive to provide information that is as accurate and comprehensive as possible. However, due to the variation of accepted practices across the different divisions of the collection, media, and genres, this information does not always neatly fit into a uniform classificatory system. For instance, for nineteenth-century paintings, we indicate only the support medium but not the paint, whose exact composition cannot be determined without an extensive analysis of the binder.

The artists of the Blue Rider circle, in particular, experimented with a wide range of paint compositions to find the one best suited to their vision of a new painterly idiom. They nonetheless often listed their works as "oil on canvas" even when they relied on other binders as well, presumably in part because they sought to retain the reputation for quality and value associated with oil paint. That is why we decided to indicate binders for the works in the Blue Rider collection. This data is generally derived from catalogues raisonnés, where available, or, in the "Art after 1945" division, from the frequently detailed information provided by the artists.

Dimensions are indicated in centimeters, height x width. Stated measurements are always for the object or sheet, and so, for graphic art and works on paper, we indicate the dimensions of the entire sheet, not the print or drawing. For sculptures, other works of plastic art, and installations, the third dimension given is the depth.

Signatures and labels are typically indications of authorship placed directly on the work by the artists themselves, sometimes in the form of an abbreviation or monogram. Labels placed on a work by someone other than the artist are marked as such.

The museum uses inventory numbers to systematically catalogue and identify the works of art in its collection. Each object is assigned a unique number; numbers are assigned in chronological sequence with the aid of an inventory book. Inventory numbers allow for the unequivocal association of information with a work of art. Gaps in the series of inventory numbers indicate historic losses, e.g., due to wartime destruction, and works that have left the collection, e.g., because they were restituted to their rightful owners.

Letter codes indicate the most important divisions within the Lenbachhaus’s holdings:

G: G inventory (gallery holdings)

GMS: Gabriele Münter Endowment (Gabriele Münter’s donation of works to the Lenbachhaus on occasion of her 80th birthday in 1957)

L: Franz von Lenbach’s collection

AK: Gabriele Münter and Johannes Eichner Foundation

KiCo: KiCo Foundation (however, the KiCo Collection, being so-called “third-party property,” is not included in this inventory)

FVL: Förderverein Lenbachhaus e.V. (Society of the Friends of the Lenbachhaus)

Kub: Kubin archive

D: Johann Georg von Dillis estate of the Historischer Verein von Oberbayern (Upper Bavaria Historical Society)

H: Estate of Thomas Theodor Heine

CHS: Christoph Heilmann Foundation

WS: Walter Storms Foundation

S: Paintings of the Munich Secession

SK: Sculptures of the Munich Secession

FH: Third-party property (works on permanent loan to the Lenbachhaus)

The Credit line field indicates the owner of a work of art or identifies any individual thanks to whose support the work entered the museum’s collection. This is where we acknowledge the generosity of, e.g., benefactors, lenders, and contributors.

For the time being, all works in our Collection Online were photographed by our staff photographers or, in a few exceptions, by other photographers. These images are provided at different resolutions depending on a work’s particular copyright situation.

Photographs of works that are in the public domain—this is generally the case for the works of artists who have been dead for more than seventy years—are available for download in files with resolutions of 2000 px, 300 dpi. You can examine these images with a magnifying-glass function, download them, and share them on the social media platforms Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest and via email.

Reproductions of works that are not yet in the public domain are provided at a somewhat smaller resolution of 800 pixels at 72 dpi and without these functions. Information on copyright holders is displayed directly below the images.

We strive for maximum transparency concerning the complex legal issues surrounding the Collection Online and the possible uses to be made of the materials provided in it. Photographic reproductions of works of art are primarily governed by two sets of legal norms: authors’ rights and image rights. Authors are natural persons, typically artists or writers, who produce works that meet the "intellectual creation threshold." When a work is reproduced in a photograph, the photographer acquires image rights.

Works are in the public domain when their authors have been dead for at least seventy years. We have decided not to place new legal restrictions on these works and publish them under the Creative Commons License CC0 1.0. You may use these images without asking us for permission. You may use these images without asking us for permission. You may download, share, copy, distribute, and use them (for scholarly, educational, publishing, and other, including commercial, purposes), or edit, modify, and build on them. We would appreciate it if you mentioned the source (the museum) and provided information on the author, included a link to the license, and indicated whether you made any alterations to the image. Any dissemination of the material on your part should be governed by the same conditions: if you remix, modify, or otherwise directly build on it, you should publish your work under the same license that applied to the original without stipulating additional restrictions or imposing them through technical devices.

By contrast, many works, including, typically, works of contemporary art by living artists and artists who have been dead for less than seventy years, are not in the public domain. We have diligently investigated and ascertained the copyright situation of any such work before including it in our Collection Online. In some cases, the authors have delegated the exercise of their rights to VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, which advises on which uses you may make of the material, determines the applicable royalty, and issues the required authorization. Information on the right holders is always displayed directly below the images.

You must request and receive permission from the Lenbachhaus prior to using these images, as well as to receive high-resolution images in the .tiff format that you may need, e.g., for larger reproductions. In such instances, please contact us at repro-lenbachhaus(at)muenchen.de. The reproduction authorization covers the photograph we provide; please contact the right holders identified in the caption to request permission to use the work.

When using images published under a CC license, we ask you to take the following recommendations, which are based on Europeana’s "Public Domain Usage Guidelines," into consideration.

Credits
If you use images, we ask that you include correct identifying data on the work and a reference to the source from which you obtained it even if you edit or modify the material. To make this easier for you, we provide an example credit line for each object.

Respect
Please show respect for the original and do not use it in an unlawful or misleading context. If you edit or modify an image, please clearly indicate that you have altered the original. If the work contains culturally sensitive elements, please handle them judiciously. Your alteration or use of such elements might be perceived as offensive or derogatory by other communities or cultures.

Reputation
If you edit an image, do not attribute your alterations to the artist who created the original or to the museum. The artist’s name and the museum’s logo must not be used to mark the altered work without appropriate permission. Please do not create the impression that your use, editing, or dissemination of the material was endorsed or specifically supported by the Lenbachhaus.

Sharing knowledge
If you have additional information, e.g., on the artist, a specific work of art, its provenance, or any right holders, please share your knowledge with us and other users. Please send us such information at lenbachhaus(at)muenchen.de.

Copyright marks
Never remove the license marks from a work or disseminate misleading information on its origin, the artist, any right holders, or its copyright status.

The objects in our collection were created between the 15th and 21st century. This means that we are dealing with historical sources whose expressions in language and image may contain disparaging or even racist elements. We have therefore attempted to quote or show those sources only when they can—in our opinion—expressly serve the understanding and critical judgement of the historical contexts. We are also aware that the display and quotation of degrading images and language always leads to the reproduction of the ideology indissolubly associated with it. We should therefore base our actions on the sensitive balancing of two conflicting poles: the responsibility of an institution devoted to reflective historiography to depict historical events authentically, and the huge importance of maintaining a respectful coexistence in the present day.

“The Integrated Authority File (Gemeinsame Normdatei, GND) is an authority file for Persons, Corporate bodies, Conferences and Events, Geographic Information, Topics and Works. It is used above all for the cataloguing of literature by libraries, but it is also increasingly being deployed in archives, museums, projects and web applications. It is operated cooperatively by the German National Library, all German-speaking library networks and the associated libraries, the German Union Catalogue of Serials (ZDB) and numerous other institutions.” That is how the German National Library describes the objective and purposes of the GND number. In museum settings, it facilitates the standardization of information on artists, synopsizes variant spellings of foreign names (e.g., Wassily Kandinsky’s), and provides additional references (e.g., to relatives), which is especially helpful when multiple artists are members of an extended family.