Ornamental Composition XV

The title Ornamental Composition XV, number and all, was given to this canvas after Morgner's death. When he was killed in Flanders in 1917, his former teacher, the painter Georg Tappert, took charge of the estate and catalogued it. Tappert gathered the bright, almost abstract pictures of 1912 under two names, Ornamental Compositions and Astral Compositions, and gave each a number. The museum records no date for this one beyond what Morgner painted at the lower right, his initials joined in a ligature, WM, with 12. At some point the canvas was relined, backed with a second canvas to strengthen it. It came to the Lenbachhaus in 2024, bought together with Composition XIII.