Marc attends Luitpold Gymnasium (school for academically gifted students). Abitur in 1899 (final examination and degree after 8 or 9 years of Gymnasium).

After years of strong religious belief and plans to devote his life to the Protestant teachings, Franz Marc enrolls at the philosophical faculty at Ludwig-Maximilian-University in Munich. But first he has to serve a year in the army.

Marc decides to study painting. At the Munich Academy he is a student of Gabriel Hackl and Wilhelm von Diez. In a letter to Father Otto Schlier, who had confirmed him in 1894, Marc trys to explain his inner development, why within three years he first wants to become a priest, then a teacher and finally a painter.

Franz Marc goes on a journey to Venice with his brother, visiting Padova and Verona on their way back to Munich.

In the summer Marc frequently works on the "Staffelalm" (Alm= cattle range or meadow high up in the Alpine mountains) above the village of Kochel on Lake Kochelsee. In the years to follow he stays there again and again.

The well-to-do fellow student Friedrich Lauer invites Marc on a journey to France spending the summer in Paris, where he also visits the art collections in the Louvre. From Paris he travels to Meudon and returns to Munich via Brittany, Normandy, Ile de France, Brussels and Cologne.

After this experience he decides not to attend the academy but prefers to be autodidactic.

First studio in Munich`s Kaulbachstrasse 68.

Second journey to Paris. Marc is very impressed by paintings by Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, by Medieval sculptures and pieces by Rodin.

At the end of June he moves to a studio in Schellingstrasse 33.

As in the years before, Marc spends some time in the country south of Munich, this time in the small town of Tölz-Lenggries with visits to the "Staffelalm". Influenced by van Gogh´s technique, Marc eventually manages to paint pictures filled with light, which constitutes a major breakthrough for him. He paints "Das Lärchenbäumchen" (´The little Larch Tree´).

Marc can hardly sell anything until a former fellow student introduces him to the art dealers Brakl and Thannhauser. In May Marc and Marie Franck move to Sindelsdorf for the summer. Marc is getting more and more interested in depicting animals.

August Macke visits Franz Marc after having seen his paintings and lithographs. In April Marc visits Bernhard Koehlersen in Berlin, who supports Marc the following year with 200 Reichsmark monthly in exchange for half of Marc´s unframed paintings. Marc gives up his Munich studio and moves to Sindelsdorf. Together with Marie Franck he visits August and Elisabeth Macke in Tegernsee (on Lake Tegernsee). In September a second exhibition of the "Neue Künstlervereinigung München " (The New Artist Association Munich), founded in 1909, is organized at Thannhauser Galery. Marc writes a favorable critique on the exhibition, which is reason enough for Wassily Kandinsky to contact him. A very close relationship is about to develop.

Marc writes about Kandinsky and Jawlensky: "(they are) fabulous people. Kandinsky surpasses everyone, even Jawlensky, in personal charisma. I was captivated by this fine, ... noble man ...".

Marc becomes a member of the "Neue Künstlervereinigung München" and immediately he is elected third chairman of the association. Marc and Kandinsky, partly supported by August Macke, work on the concept of an almanach which they call "Der Blaue Reiter".

In June Franz Marc and Marie Franck get married in London.

In the summer tensions in the association grow to such an extent that Kandinsky, Münter and Marc leave the association on Dec. 3rd. Shortly after the editors of "Der Blaue Reiter" present their first exhibition at Thannhausen Galery.

The first public institution to buy a painting by Franz Marc, "Die Roten Pferde" (The Red Horses), is the Folkwang Museum in Hagen (Northrhine Westphalia).

Marc initiates the essay "Im Kampf um die Kunst" (Fighting for Art) as an answer to Karl Vinnen´s "Ein Protest deutschser Künstler" (A Protest of German Artists).

In Berlin, Marc gets in touch with the "Brücke" (Bridge)-artists. On Febr. 12th, the second exhibition of the "Blauer Reiter"-group is opened at Golz Galery, in which also Marc exhibits and which shows graphics exclusively . In May the almanach "Der Blaue Reiter" is published.

Marc meets Paul Klee for the first time. In autumn Marc and Macke visit their French colleague Robert Delaunnay in Paris, who also took part in the second "Blauer Reiter" exhibition. When staying in Berlin again, Marc meets the expressionist poet Else Lasker-Schüler für the first time, which leads to a regular exchange of letters.

Marc has a leading role in preparing the "Erster Deutscher Herbstsalon" (First German Autumn Exhibit). Together with Heckel, Kandinsky, Klee and Kokoschka he works on a Bible illustration, which is never finished. In Sindelsdorf Marc creates the great and important works "Der Turm der Blauen Pferde" (The Tower of the Blue Horses), "Die Wölfe/Balkankriege" (The Wolves/BalkanWars). "Tierschicksale" (Fates of Animals) and others in the summer.

Marc moves to Ried, near the Monastery of Benediktbeuren (close to Kochel). Marc works with Hugo Ball on a theater project for Düsseldorf.

At the beginning of World War I Marc is draughted . During the war years, Marc creates a very significant book of sketches. The famous picture "Tirol" is redone and finished.

In a letter to Marie Marc the fellow painter Richard Seewald writes in February that Franz Marc is among 30 especially gifted artists who are supposed to be called back from the front. A few weeks later Marc writes to his wife how he is looking forward to his "undamaged, lovely home, to you and to my work". Shortly after, on March 4th, he is killed near Verdun, Lorraine (France).

Franz Marc is declared "entarteter Künstler" by the Nazis. 130 of his works are confiscated in museums.