The painting that made Wilhelm Morgner famous is Goats (1911). The Lumberjack (1911) and Soest Farmer (1912) follow it in the hearts of collectors and museum visitors. Of the 39 works by Wilhelm Morgner in our catalogue, these 39 are the most admired, each presented with its date, its museum and what sets it apart.
Rangirano prema našoj ocjeni popularnosti, koja objedinjuje broj pretraživanja, posjeta i narudžbi za svako djelo. Ažurirano Listopad 2026. Every masterpiece on this page can be ordered as a museum-quality, hand-painted oil reproduction or a fine art print, at the size you choose.
2 muzeja u kojima se nalazi najviše djela s ove stranice.
| Muzej | Grad | Djela autora Wilhelm Morgner | Slike iz ovog popisa |
|---|---|---|---|
 Museum Ostwall |
Dortmund | 1 | Entry of Christ into Jerusalem |
 Städel Museum |
Frankfurt | 1 | Astrale Komposition VI |
Only 5 years separate Wilhelm Morgner's first and last dated masterpieces, 1909 and 1913: here is that brief career, year by year.
Goats (1911). Next come The Lumberjack (1911) and Soest Farmer (1912).
20 years old: Goats dates from 1911 and Wilhelm Morgner was born in 1891.
Goats, The Lumberjack, Soest Farmer, The Lumberjack with the Crucified, Self-Portrait XV, Mother with Child, Schulte Stands at Open Door, Man with Blue Car in Ornamental Landscape, Striding Woman in Landscape i The Porter. The ranking above gives the year and the museum of each.
Our catalogue lists 39 works by Wilhelm Morgner, dated from 1909 to 1913.
Most of them are in Museum Ostwall (Dortmund) i Städel Museum (Frankfurt). The table above lists the museums one by one.
In 1911: 15 of the 39 works on this page date from then, among them Goats.
The earliest on this page is Schulte Stands at Open Door (1909), the latest Ascension (1913).
Expressionism, as the paintings on this page show.
Yes. Every painting on this page can be ordered as a museum-quality, hand-painted oil reproduction or a fine art print, in the size you choose, from the painting's own page.
In the fleeting dawn of the twentieth century, few voices resonated with as much raw, spiritual intensity as that of Wilhelm Morgner. Born on January 27, 1891, in the Westphalian town of Soest, Morgner’s life was a short but brilliant arc of creative evolution, cut tragically short by the ravages of war. His early years were marked by a profound tension between duty and desire; while his mother, an artistically inclined woman, envisioned a future for him in the pulpit as a Protestant minister, the young Morgner felt the irresistible pull of the canvas. This internal struggle between the structured expectations of his upbringing and the chaotic beauty of modern art would eventually fuel the expressive power of his work.
Morgner’s journey into the heart of the avant-garde began in 1908, when, guided by the wisdom of Otto Modersohn, he moved to the renowned artists' colony of Worpswede. It was here, under the mentorship of the Expressionist painter Georg Tappert, that Morgner’s artistic identity truly began to coalesce. Tappert did more than teach technique; he opened a window into the burgeoning world of modernism, introducing his pupil to the radical possibilities of en plein aire painting and the vibrant energy of contemporary movements. As Morgner matured, his early works—often characterized by a heavy, somber realism and dark moods—began to shed their weight, gradually transforming into something far more ethereal and luminous.
As Morgner moved toward the great art centers like Berlin, his style underwent a breathtaking metamorphosis. The influence of Pointillism, Futurism, and the haunting emotional depth of Vincent van Gogh began to permeate his brushwork. He did not merely observe these movements; he assimilated them, distilling their essence into a personal language of pure color and spiritual inquiry. His fascination with the interplay of light and pigment led him away from the literal depiction of rural laborers and landscapes toward an increasingly abstract realm. For Morgner, color was not just a descriptive tool but a vessel for the divine, a means to convey profound spiritual truths that transcended the physical world.
This period of intense experimentation saw his work featured in some of the most prestigious and radical publications and exhibitions of the era, including:
The trajectory of Morgner’s meteoric rise was violently interrupted by the onset of World War I. Conscripted into military service, he found himself thrust onto the battlefields of the Western and Eastern Fronts. The physical and psychological toll of the conflict stripped him of the ability to work in oils, yet even amidst the devastation of war, his creative spirit refused to be extinguished. He turned to the more portable mediums of watercolor and drawing, continuing to document the world through a lens of fragmented, expressive beauty. His service, which earned him the Iron Cross, ultimately led to his untimely death near Langemark, Belgium, in August 1917, at the age of only twenty-six.
Though his life was tragically brief, Wilhelm Morgner left behind a legacy that continues to captivate the modern soul. He remains a pivotal figure in the German Expressionist movement, representing a bridge between the heavy realism of the nineteenth century and the spiritual abstraction of the twentieth. His ability to find the sacred within the spectrum of color serves as a poignant reminder of the power of art to transcend even the darkest of human experiences. Today, his works stand as luminous fragments of a lost era, echoing with the vibrant, unfulfilled potential of a true visionary.