Figural scene

In Albert Mueller's composition, the protagonist resembles a puppet situated among geometric patches - circles, chiaroscuro planes, and multi-directional intersecting lines. Above him, on a platform, a creature like both a bird and a cat is sitting. Stars and a comet suggesting outer space are visible in the background. Among other shapes, the sun and full moon can be discerned. The whole resembles an expressionist theatre set or a dream. The graphic was made in 1919 using the lithographic technique and printed on handmade velin paper with a watermark, only part of which is within the card. It is a section of a cogwheel and a worker's leg. It was created during the period when the artist turned towards Expressionism. In building space, he began to use permeating stereometrics (three-dimensional) transparent (translucent) forms. The expression of the composition was emphasised by underpainting lithographs with watercolours. He liked to place figural motifs in space, as in the cycle Jenseits im Diesseits (That Side on This Side), published in 1923.Albert Mueller was born in 1884 in Schwandorf and died in 1963 in Bremen. He studied at the academies in Munich with Carl von Marr and in Stuttgart with Adolf Hölzl, considered one of the forerunners of abstract compositions. He worked in Stuttgart, belonging to the local artistic avant-garde of the first thirty years of the 20th century. In 1919, together with Willi Baumeister and Oskar Schlemmer, he co-founded the association Üecht Gruppe, a local branch of the November Group, which demanded radical changes in the academic teaching system of artists. In 1924, he joined the Stuttgart Secession.

Ewa Gwiazdowska