53 - Mela Muter (Maria Melania Mutermilch)

Mela Muter (Maria Melania Mutermilch) Portrait of Robert Rey Circa 1917 Oil on canvas. 92.1 x 73.4 cm. Framed. Signed 'Muter' in brown upper left and inscribed 'mon ami R. Rey/affecteusement' upper right. Discarded painting of Christ's crucifixion to verso. - In very fine condition with fresh colours. Minimal margin abrasions. Provenance Pescheteau-Badin, Paris, auction 16 March 2012, lot 101; Private collection, Brussels Born in Warsaw, the painter Mela Muter lived in Paris from 1901, and she was among the most popular portrait painters of French society around 1920. Her sitters included politicians, composers, artists and writers, such as Georges Clemenceau, Ambroise Vollard and Maurice Ravel. With her unmistakable intensity, she captured her contemporaries, adeptly conveying their profession and character. Around 1917, at the height of her artistic powers, Muter also painted the French art critic and museum director Robert Rey (1888-1964). The son of a colonial administrator who initially lived in Senegal, Rey advanced to become a well-known art critic who also championed the development and modernisation of France’s museums. Following posts at the Musée de Cluny and Musée de Luxembourg, he was appointed “Inspecteur Géneral des Beaux-Arts” in 1936. He and Mela Muter had known each other since 1913. Impressed by her powers of artistic expression, he promoted her by emphasising her work in his reviews and supporting her major exhibition at the Galerie Joseph Billiet in 1924. Muter was aware of his patronage and captured her mentor in a portrait corresponding to his strength. Dressed in a suit and wrapped in a brown coat, Rey poses seated on a chair. Muter has clearly focused on characterising his striking head with its white hair, long beard and attentively intelligent eyes. The flesh tones of the face and hands have been deftly applied with a palette knife, but the beard is nonetheless made to appear soft. The turning of the head to the left and the slightly oblique positioning of the body invest the portrait with an intrinsic dynamism and, simultaneously, a presence that remains nearly inescapable even for viewers today.