Red Woman was one of Marc's last paintings containing the human figure and reflects the humanistic idea of man's inter-relationship with nature. A female nude, untouched by the influence of civilisation, is harmoniously absorbed into a strangely patterned two-dimensional background. Marc co-founded, with Kandinsky, the Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider) artists' group in Munich in 1911–1912. One of the most powerful and original voices of German Expressionism, Marc's paintings depicted animals in spiritual harmony with their surroundings, using brilliant colours and increasingly abstract forms. Aged just 36, he was killed at Verdun in the First World War. The vendor, Stefan Pauson (1887–1963), was the brother of Tekla Hess, née Pauson (1884–1968) who had sold and gifted Leicester other German artworks in 1944.