Robert Muller (1920-2003) - Composition abstraite, forme libre (sans prix de réserve)

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

Title: Abstract composition, free form
Ref: 30

Technique: black ink on laid paper
Period: Early 1950s

Sheet size: 31.5 × 20.7 cm

Unsigned

Good condition

Robert Müller, born in Zurich in 1920, is a renowned Swiss sculptor, a pioneer of ferrous 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 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 "Eisen-Müller". Together with Swiss sculptors Bernhard Luginbühl and Jean Tinguely, he is regarded as one of the founders of modern iron sculpture.

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

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

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

Retrospectives of his drawings and engravings took place in 1979 at the Musée Rath, which possesses 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 Prints Cabinet of the same museum organized two exhibitions, each accompanied by the artist’s exhaustive catalog raisonné of his printed works, prepared by Rainer Michael Mason.

Despite significant 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 the age of 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.