RICHARD MÜLLER 1874 Tschirnitz – Dresden 1954
Dalmatian, 1906

Oil on canvas, 56 x 87 cm
Monogramed and dated upper left: RM/06

• one of the artist's masterpieces
• brilliant brushwork
• psycholigically profound and life-like portrait of a dog
• never offered on the art market before

PROVENANCE
Eduard Staffel, Witzenhausen (a friend of the artist)
thence by descent
Private collection, Germany

PRICE
Please contact me

LITERATURE
Franz Hermann Meißner, Das Werk Richard Müllers, Dresden 1921, pp. 134-136, plate 43.
Corinna Wodarz, Symbol und Eros. Die Bildwelten Richard Müllers (1874–1954) mit dem Katalog des Gesamtwerks [= calatalogue raisonné], Göttinger Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte, vol 1, Göttingen 2002, no. M 1906.03.

This compelling portrait of a Dalmatian by Richard Müller is one of the artist's best paintings. It combines exceptional technical refinement with profound observational sensitivity, bringing the dog vividly to life as an individual rather than merely as a representative of its breed. The painting’s significance is underscored by its selection as one of the very few works reproduced as a full-page colour plate in the landmark 1921 publication devoted to Müller’s oeuvre.
Richard Müller (1874–1954) was one of the most distinctive German painters, draftsmen, and printmakers of the early twentieth century. At the age of fourteen he entered the drawing school of the Royal Saxon Porcelain Manufactory in Meissen. In 1890, although younger than the prescribed admission age, he was accepted into the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts. His outstanding talent soon brought him early recognition. Following the encouragement of Max Klinger, he turned to printmaking and, in 1897, was awarded the prestigious Grand Prix de Rome for an etching. Shortly afterwards, he received a major gold medal for one of his paintings, establishing his reputation as one of Dresden’s leading artists.
In 1900 Müller was appointed to the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts, where he taught for more than three decades and influenced generations of artists, among them George Grosz and Otto Dix. Renowned for his extraordinary technical mastery, his paintings, drawings and prints combine meticulous observation of nature with a highly imaginative, often dreamlike symbolism that occupies a unique place in German art.
In 1933 Müller became rector of the Dresden Academy and joined the Nazi Party. In the same year Otto Dix was dismissed from the Academy by order of the Saxon Ministry of the Interior, a decision Müller, as rector, was required to implement. In 1935 Müller himself was removed from office by the Nazi authorities, dismissed from the Academy, and expelled from the Nazi party following internal conflicts and allegations of “subversive tendencies” in his art. Nevertheless, several of his works were subsequently shown at the Große Deutsche Kunstausstellungen (Great German Art Exhibitions) in Munich and he was included in the 1944 Gottbegnadeten-Liste.
After the Second World War Müller remained in Dresden. His reputation in the German Democratic Republic suffered because of his complex relationship with the National Socialist regime, and for a long time his artistic achievement received only limited public attention. A renewed institutional reassessment began in the later twentieth century and continued into the 21st century, including the exhibition “Die Schöne und das Biest. Richard Müller & Mel Ramos & Wolfgang Joop” at the Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig in 2013–14. In recent years, Richard Müller’s work has received increasing recognition. He stands among the most unusual, fascinating, and controversial artistic personalities in twentieth-century German painting. His oeuvre resists easy categorisation, bringing together Old Masterly craftsmanship, the incisive precision of Neue Sachlichkeit and elements of Symbolism.