Robert Muller (1920-2003) - Composition, projet de sculpture (sans prix de réserve)

Title: Abstract composition, sculpture project
Ref: 1

Technique: brown ink on thick cotton paper
Period: 1950s/1960s

Sheet size: 64.5 x 50 cm

Hand-signed lower right corner

Good condition, paper yellowed, a few stains (see photos)
Notes on the back: "D6 Miriam 65"

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 workshops 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, deeply marked his early work.

In 1947, Müller spent two years in Genoa, where he sought to liberate 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 onward, 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 regarded as one of the creators of modern iron sculpture.

His Parisian works, often abstract but with references to the human body, are characterized by an erotic and organic tension, reminiscent of carapaces or disarticulated 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’s.

Retrospectives of his drawings and engravings were held in 1979 at the Musée Rath, which houses two important iron sculptures (Le Bûcher 1959 and L’Archange 1963) and about ten drawings from 1972 to 1977.
In 1982 and 1996, the Print Cabinet of the same museum presented two exhibitions, each accompanied by the artist’s monograph, the latter 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, aged 83, leaving an artistic legacy celebrated in Europe, notably through posthumous exhibitions such as the 2020 Schifferli Gallery show, marking the centenary of his birth.