Future (Woman in Stockholm)

Gabriele Münter (19 February 1877 – 19 May 1962) was a German expressionist painter who was at the forefront of the Munich avant-garde in the early 20th century. She studied and lived with the painter Wassily Kandinsky and was a founding member of the expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter.

Münter was born to upper middle-class parents in Berlin on 19 February 1877. The youngest of four siblings, she had two brothers and a sister. In 1884, when she was seven years old, the family settled in Koblenz.

Münter began to draw as a child, and her family supported her desire to become an artist with a private tutor. After her father died in 1886, her mother arranged for her to receive formal drawing lessons through her school in Koblenz. In 1897, at the age of twenty, she received artistic training in the Düsseldorf studio of artist Ernst Bosch and later at the Damenschule (Women's School) with artist Willy Spatz.

By the time she was 21 years old, both of her parents had died and she was living at home with no occupation. That year, in 1898, she decided to take a trip to the United States with her sister to visit her extended family.