Wilhelm Morgner (1891-1917) is one of the few artists of the European avant-garde to find his own way to abstraction before 1914. Only a few years thereafter remained for his artistic work, however, as he was killed in action in 1917 during World War I. The occasion for this publication is the hundredth anniversary of Morgner's death in 2017. The starting point of his artistic path was the Expressionist concept of the artist as an exceptional individual who liberates himself from tradition to create a new kind of art on his own accord. He would later show an interest in theosophy and anthroposophy, which led him to abstract art-like Vassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, Frantisek Kupka, and Piet Mondrian, who are also presented in the book with comparable works. Thus Morgner's paintings fall into line with a European art movement that decisively contributed to the development of abstract art prior to 1914.
