Size: 33.5 x 49 cm (in light of frame)
Signed p.d.: 'Muter' (recto and verso)
Origins
Galerie Marek, 1980s
Exhibited
École de Paris. Paintings by Jewish artists of Polish origin in the collection of Wojciech Fibak, BWA Gallery of Contemporary Art in Olsztyn, October-December 2000.
École de Paris. Jewish Artists of Polish Origin in the Collection of Wojciech Fibak, Leszno District Museum, May-July 2000
Polish Paris. École de Paris. Collection of Wojciech Fibak, National Museum in Szczecin, December 1999-March 2000.
École de Paris. Jewish Artists from Poland in the Collection of Wojciech Fibak, State Art Gallery in Sopot, July 6-October 3, 1999.
Literature
École de Paris. Paintings by Jewish artists of Polish origin in the collection of Wojciech Fibak, exhibition catalog, BWA Gallery of Contemporary Art in Olsztyn, Olsztyn 2000, p. 32 (il.).
École de Paris. Jewish Artists of Polish Origin in the Collection of Wojciech Fibak, exhibition catalog, Leszno District Museum, Leszno 2000, p. 30 (ill.)
Polish Paris. École de Paris. Collection of Wojciech Fibak, exhibition catalog, National Museum in Szczecin, Szczecin 1999, p. 134 (ill.)
École de Paris. Jewish Artists from Poland in the Collection of Wojciech Fibak, exhibition catalog, State Art Gallery in Sopot, Sopot 1999, p. 95 (il.)
Biography
She was born into a Jewish merchant family in Warsaw as Maria Melania Klingsland. In 1899 she married writer and socialist activist Michal Mutermilch. From this union was born her only son, Andrew. Already at the end of the 19th century, she attended Milosz Kotarbinski's Private School of Painting and Drawing. In 1901, the whole family moved to Paris, where Muter opened her own studio and continued her studies at the Académie de la Grande Chaumiere and Académie Colarossi. Until the outbreak of World War I, the artist painted extensively, took part in numerous exhibitions and traveled, especially fondly to Brittany, as well as Spain. She also began an affair with Leopold Staff. She just spent the war in the north of France. After its end, she returned to Paris. Later, she accompanied her son, who was suffering from bone tuberculosis, on stays in sanatoriums, where she met Raymond Lefebvre, with whom she was united by strong feelings. The end of the second decade of the 20th century saw traumatic events for Muter - divorce from her husband and the death of her lover.
The interwar period is the time of the greatest development of her career. At that time, Muter became a sought-after portraitist creating for commissions by artists, writers, politicians and the Parisian aristocracy. In the early 1920s she succumbed to the influence of Cubism for a brief moment, traveled to the Côte d'Azur for the first time, converted to Catholicism and survived the unexpected death of her son. She painted not only portraits, but also landscapes and still lifes. She created her own original style, using characteristic impasto textures and her own expressive style. During World War II, she was in hiding in the south of France, first in Villeneuve-les-Avignon and then already in Avignon itself. From this time come numerous landscapes and symbolic religious scenes set against the backdrop of the Rhone valley. After returning to Paris, Muter gradually began to fall into obscurity. Her legacy was rediscovered in the 1960s by Lina and Boleslaw Nawrocki, and popularized by high-profile exhibitions at Cologne's Galerie Gmurzynska, as well as through a presentation at Warsaw's National Museum in 1994.
