Robert Muller (1920-2003) - Composition organique - projet de sculpture

Title: Abstract composition, sculpture project
Ref: 6

Technique: sanguine on thick cotton paper
Period: 1950s/60s

Sheet size: 50.5 X 65.5 cm

Hand-signed at the bottom toward the center

Good condition

Robert Müller, born in Zurich in 1920, is a renowned Swiss sculptor, 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, deeply marked his beginnings.

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". Along with Swiss sculptors Bernhard Luginbühl and Jean Tinguely he is considered one of the creators of modern iron sculpture.

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

Müller exhibited at the Venice Biennale, the São Paulo Biennale 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.

Retrospectives of his drawings and engravings were held in 1979 at the Musée Rath, which possesses two major iron sculptures (Le Bûcher 1959 and L’Archange 1963) and about ten drawings from 1972 to 1977.
In 1982 and 1996 the Cabinet des estampes of this same museum offered two exhibitions each time accompanied by the catalogue raisonné of the works printed, prepared by Rainer Michael Mason.

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