MUELLER, OTTO
1874 Liebau/Silesia–1930 Wroclaw

Title: Männerbildnis (Johann Peter Hubert Kallen) / Frauenbildnis (Magdalena Helene Kallen) .
Date: 1917.
Technique: Each pastel and oil on canvas.
Measurement: 52 x 41 cm.
Notation: Monogrammed lower left: O.M.
Frame: Framed.



Provenance:
- - Private ownership

- Clemens Sels Museum, Neuss (on loan from a private collection)

- Private collection, North Germany


Exhibition:
- Art collection Zwickau, 2012

- Städtische Museen Heilbronn, 2012

- Kunsthalle Vogelmann, Heilbronn 2012

- Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg 2013


Literature:
- Pirsig-Marshall, Tanja/von Lüttichau, Mario Andreas: Otto Mueller – Catalogue Raisonné, vol. 1, Gemälde/Paintings, ed. Markus Eisenbeis, VAN HAM Art Publications, Cologne 2020, cat. rais. no. G1917/10 & G1917/11, ill.

- Soika, Aya: Weltenbruch. Die Künstler der Brücke im Ersten Weltkrieg 1914–1918, Berlin 2014, pp. 99 and 100, ill.

- Lüttichau, Mario-Andreas von/Pirsig, Tanja (eds.): Otto Mueller. Werkverzeichnis der Gemälde und Zeichnungen (CD-ROM), Munich 2003, Essen 2003/07/08



As a member of the “Brücke” art group, Otto Mueller can be considered one of the most significant Expressionists. After the group disbanded in 1913, however, he suffered the same fate as many of his fellow artists: Mueller was drafted into military service during World War I. Initially deployed in Flanders, he was transferred to France shortly thereafter, where he contracted severe pneumonia at Easter 1917 and was eventually admitted to the military hospital at the Camillian monastery in Neuss for a convalescence lasting almost exactly two months.

At the hospital, Mueller used the time to plan further exhibitions, meet fellow artists from Düsseldorf, and complete commissioned works for the citizens of Neuss. The monastery played a key role in this, as many members of Neuss society frequented the monastery—including for charitable purposes. This included Magdalena Helena Kallen, who worked at the infirmary as a volunteer Red Cross nurse and thus came into contact with Mueller.

The double portrait of the Kallen couple, rediscovered in 2014, which Mueller created over several extended sessions, is one of only a few surviving works from his time at the Neuss infirmary. The commissioned works in Neuss are of immense importance to Mueller. Even before his stay at the military hospital, Mueller wrote to his wife Maschka that he intended to earn money for their joint livelihood through commissioned portraits. In Neuss, the ideal opportunity presented itself, and so the double portrait serves as a rare testament to this decisive period in Otto Mueller’s life.



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#Otto Mueller #Expressionism #Germany #Modern Art #Painting #1910s #Figure / Figures #Modern Art.







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