Erwin Müller Sold at Auction Prices

b. 1893 - d. 1978

Erwin Müller (* 1893 in Reichenberg , † 1978 in Naumburg (Saale) ) was a German-Bohemian painter of the New Objectivity . He belonged to the second generation of German-speaking visual artists from Bohemia , Moravia and Silesia .

Erwin Müller studied at the fine arts academy in Vienna. He came to Naumburg immediately after the Second World War. In 1946 he took part in the first post-war exhibition "Naumburg artist". Until 1958 he worked as a freelance painter and commercial artist. Two years earlier, the graphic section of the Association of Visual Artists had tried to withdraw Müller's membership - and thus the basis of life - officially because of the allegedly lacking level of his graphic work. In addition, Müller refused to accept the social commitment generally expected in the GDR period.

When he retired, he occasionally painted simple rural idylls based on postcard motifs and portraits based on photos to improve his tight financial situation. All the years from 1946 until his death, he lived and worked in a room in Naumburg's Burgstrasse in an apartment that he had to share with a family.

Erwin Müller's career, which began in Czechoslovakia between the wars, ended with the Second World War and its aftermath. As a resettled middle-aged Sudeten German in the GDR, he was denied an artistic new beginning. The artist found no place in the collective memory of Czechoslovakia or that of the GDR.