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

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

Title: Abstraction
Ref: 36

Technique: brown gouache wash
Period: 1950s/1960s

Sheet format: 20.6 x 31.5 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 post-war period, he trained in the studios of Otto Bänninger and Germaine Richier, two major figures of sculpture based in Switzerland. Richier's influence, with her hybrid forms blending human, animal and nature, profoundly marked 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 reputation. He earned the nickname "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 a tense erotic and organic quality, reminiscent of exoskeletons or disarticulated insects.

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

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

Retrospectives of his drawings and engravings took place in 1979 at the Musée Rath, which houses two important iron sculptures (Le Bûcher 1959 and L’Archange 1963) and around a dozen drawings from 1972 to 1977. In 1982 and 1996, the Print Cabinet of the same museum offered two exhibitions, each accompanied by the artist’s illustrated critical catalogue, prepared by Rainer Michael Mason.

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