4103 - Richard Müller, "Archer IV"

Richard Müller, "Archer IV" large-format, surreal composition featuring a lizard biting another lizard, a female nude and a male nude; see Günther’s catalogue raisonné, no. 102, drypoint etching in dark brown with a slight plate tone, 1920, posthumous print, with the embossed stamp ‘Prof. Richard Müller, Dresden’ to the right of the image and numbered ‘65/90’ in lead to the left, a ligated monogram “RM” centred at the top of the plate and dated “1920” in the lower section, slight signs of ageing, framed behind glass, image dimensions approx. 42 x 60 cm. Artist information: German painter, draughtsman, graphic artist and designer (1874, Tschirnitz [Perštejn] on the Eger River - 1954, Dresden-Loschwitz), his extraordinary artistic talent became apparent at an early age; at the suggestion of the Meissen porcelain painter Johann Heinrich Theil, he was a pupil at the painting school of the Royal Meissen Porcelain Manufactory from 1888 to 1890; from 1890 to 1894, studied at the Dresden Academy under Leon Pohle, Ernst Moritz Geyger and Leonhard Gey, despite not yet having reached the minimum entry age; he was a member of the ‘Goppeln Artists’ Circle’; in 1895, at the suggestion of Max Klinger, he taught himself the art of etching; in 1896, he won the ‘Grand Prix de Rome’ with his etching ‘Adam and Eve’ and travelled to Italy, 1897-1900: teacher at the Dresden School of Art; 1900-35: teacher and, from 1903, professor of painting and drawing, as well as a member of the Academic Council at the Dresden Academy; 1914-18: served in the First World War in France; 1933-35: Rector of the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts; contributed works to the major German art exhibitions at the Haus der Deutschen Kunst in Munich; received numerous awards, including a gold medal at the 1900 World’s Fair in Paris; from 1944 included on the ‘List of the Divinely Gifted’; his works are held in museums in Berlin, Dresden, Prague, Chicago, Karlsruhe, Leipzig and Bucharest, amongst others; Chairman of the Saxon Artists’ Council and a member of the Dresden Artists’ Cooperative; worked in Dresden-Loschwitz, Source: Thieme-Becker, Vollmer, Saur, *Bio-Bibliographisches Künstlerlexikon*; Dressler, *Künstler am Dresdner Elbhang*; and the internet.