Robert Muller (1920-2003) - Abstraction (sans prix de réserve)

We present to you a set of original works on paper by sculptor Robert Müller. These are preparatory studies on paper, finished abstractions and drawings intended to be presented as such.

Title: AbstractIon
Ref: 21

Technique: brown ink
Period: 1950s

Sheet size: 31 x 20 cm

unsigned

Good condition
Robert Müller, born in Zurich in 1920, is a renowned Swiss sculptor, a pioneer of iron sculpture in the 1950s and 1960s.

During World War II and the immediate postwar period, he trained in the studios of Otto Bänninger and Germaine Richier, two major figures of sculpture based in Switzerland. Richier’s influence, with hybrid forms blending human, animal and nature, profoundly shaped his early work.

In 1947, Müller spent two years in Genoa, where he sought to emancipate himself from Richier’s influence by exploring figurative sculptures in plaster and bronze. In 1949, he settled with his family first in Paris, then in Villiers-le-Bel, where he lived and worked until his death in 2003.

From the mid-1950s, Robert Müller enjoyed the highest recognition and international acclaim. He earned the nickname "Eisen-Müller" (Iron Müller). Together with Swiss sculptors Bernhard Luginbühl and Jean Tinguely, he is regarded as one of the creators of modern sculpture in iron.

His Parisian works, often abstract but with references to the human body, are characterized by erotic and organic tension, akin to carapaces or disarticulated insects.

Müller exhibited at the Venice Biennale, the São Paulo Biennial and the Paris Biennale between 1956 and 1960, and participated in documenta II in Kassel in 1959.

His works are acquired by prestigious museums, notably in the United States, and shown in galleries such as Jeanne Bucher’s.

Retrospectives of his drawings and prints were held in 1979 at the Musée Rath, which owns two important iron sculptures (Le Bûcher 1959 and L’Archange 1963) and about a dozen drawings from 1972 to 1977.

In 1982 and 1996, the Prints Department of the same museum organized two exhibitions, each accompanied by a published catalogue raisonné of his printed work, prepared by Rainer Michael Mason.

Despite considerable fame in the 1950s–1970s, he gradually withdrew from the art scene from the mid-1970s onward. He died on October 15, 2003, in Villiers-le-Bel, at 83, leaving an artistic legacy celebrated in Europe, notably through posthumous exhibitions such as the 2020 showing at Galerie Schifferli, marking the centenary of his birth.