3875 - Rolf Müller-Landau, "Ancient Scene"

Rolf Müller-Landau, "Ancient Scene" A male figure with horses in an abstract southern landscape; following the oppressive years of 1933-45, the end of the war brought Müller-Landau a sense of liberation, including from an artistic perspective. Inspired by Matisse, Picasso, Braque and Cézanne, he turned away from a sombre naturalism towards a light, playful abstraction, which brought the artist - who had already passed away in 1956 - national recognition, colour-cut monotype (colour-painted woodcut or linocut) on thin rice paper, mounted on card, c. 1954, titled ‘Antike Szene’ in lead at the bottom left and hand-signed ‘Rolf Müller-Landau’ at the bottom right, Munich framing stamp on the reverse, signs of age, framed behind glass and a passe-partout, passe-partout dimensions approx. 46 x 54 cm. Artist information: born Rudolf Hans Christian Müller, German painter and graphic artist (1903, Kia Ying Chow, China - 1956, Bad Bergzabern), raised from 1904 onwards with relatives in Lohr am Main; moved with his parents to Landau in the Palatinate from 1910, 1922-29: studied at the State Academy of Arts in Karlsruhe, becoming a master student of Ernst Gustav Würtenberger from 1924; worked as a freelance artist from 1930, adding ‘Landau’ to his name, in 1945, following the destruction of his flat and studio, he moved to Heuchelheim and founded the ‘Pfälzer Sezession’, whose members included HAP Grieshaber, Werner Gilles, Gustav Seitz and Hans Purrmann; after the Second World War, he developed his characteristic colour-cut monotypes; sources: Vollmer (supplement), Wikipedia.