Self-Portrait

When this picture was acquired in 1970, it was catalogued as a portrait of Marianne von Werefkin, the Russian-born painter at the centre of the Munich avant-garde. The signature at the lower right reads Bossi, so the open question was the sitter. The Lenbachhaus now identifies the woman in the picture as Erma Bossi herself and titles the work Self-Portrait, keeping the old identification only in the record of how it was acquired. Bossi painted it around 1910, in oil on cardboard, during the years she exhibited in Munich alongside Werefkin. It is on long-term loan from the Gabriele Münter and Johannes Eichner Foundation, and it hangs in the museum's new Blue Rider presentation, which pays particular attention to the women of the circle.