Portrait of Emile Verdet

This work is unusual. Most of Mela Muter's paintings seem to turn up orphaned on the doorstep of auction houses, without secure provenance or history. This one is different, having been in the same family for many years. Muter's celebrity sitters are usually always recorded, but this painting is unusual in that it features an ordinary man whose name and circumstances are recorded, and there is an anecdote accompanying the painting.

Portrait of Emile Verdet, oil on canvas 1940's. 81 x 53cm.

This is Emile Verdet, owner of "Le Coq Hardi" and later the restaurant "Verdet" in Avignon, France. When Muter was seeking refuge in Avignon during the Second World War, she and other impoverished artists ate at Emile Verdet's restaurants. Put up for sale last year, the painting has been in the Verdet family since it was painted and given to Emile, in lieu of payment for a meal.

Muter's mantra was "concentrate on the important things." She always put a great deal of work into the faces and hands of sitters, usually expending less time and energy on clothing, backgrounds etc. This work receives a consistently high level of attention throughout.

Photo: Cité Fleurie, Paris 1905

Adults l-r, Mme Furstenberg (sister of the artist), Mela Muter, Michal Mutermilch (artist's husband), M. Furstenberg (artist's brother in law), Leopold Gottlieb.

The children are (l-r) Piotr and Julek Furstenberg and Andrzej Mutermilch.

The setting for this 1905 photograph is the Cité Fleurie, a group of artists studios constructed in 1880 with materials left over from the Universial Exposition. Gauguin and Modigliani both worked here, as did countless lesser artists. The studios are still standing at 65 Boulevard Arago, Montparnasse.

More information on Cité Fleurie.

Quai de la Ligne, Avignon

1940's(?)

During the Second World War Mela Muter moved to Avignon in the south of France, where she continued to paint and taugh drawing and art history at the College Ste Marie. In return the local authorities gave her a small house which she kept until her death, returning regularly for summer holidays after the end of WW2 when she had relocated to Paris.

The work above depicts Quai de la Ligne in Avignon, looking towards the Pont d'Avignon. The yellow house, far left, is Muter's house, 24 Quai de la Ligne. Muter painted numerous works in the vicinity of her house, in the street, in and around the stairs behind her house, and around the Pont d'Avignon.

The artist outside her house in Avignon

Muter painted some of her best works in Avignon during the Second World War, especially landscapes. Her work is charactised at this point by a shift in palette towards deep blues (seen here in the hills in the background) mustard yellows, and light greys, yellows and ochres. Shortly after, in the 1950's, her eyesight began to fail and the quality of her work changed dramatically.

The Old Breton

"The Old Breton" Pre-1910? 91 x 58cm.

Stylistically influenced by Gauguin, Van Gogh and portraying earnestly the lifestyle of the Breton people, this work dates between 1905-1910. As with the still life "Fishes" the paint is very thin, and although many of the elements of Muter's later technique - the dark, black shadows, bare patches of canvas, the tiny seperate brushstrokes - are already in place, the composition is slightly clumsy and the handling in places is weak. The old man's jacket and the sky behind him betray a naivete that would not be thrown off for a number of years to come. Muter did not truly settle into a mature style until after the First World War.

This work goes on sale on the 3rd of June in London. The estimate is £15-20,000 which is fairly low for a work of this type and scale.

Rue à Collioure

1920 or before

Muter visited Collioure in the south of France on several occassions, following in the footsteps of artists such as Matisse, Derain and Signac. The work above is quite early and is one of the several painted under the influence of the Fauves. The bright colours are fairly unusual for Muter and this work can be labelled an experiment. The work is painted on the reverse of this nude.

The scene today can be seen below, little has changed -

Fishes

Oil on canvas, 1903. 61.5x61.5cm

The works given title is "Ryby" ("Fishes" in Polish.) This is an early work as evidenced by the fuller signature "Mela Muter" and the technique. Muter's trademark patches of blank canvas are present but rather than the impasto of all her later works the application of the paint here is very economical, almost dry-brush in places.

Mela Muter's earliest work are signed in full "Maria Mela Mutermilch." This was shortened (as in the work above) to the more manageable "Mela Muter" around 1901, and by 1914 she used "Muter" which was to be her signature for the rest of her life.

This work sold in June 2008 for $30, 476.

Fort St. Andre, Avignon

1940's

The ancient Fort St. Andre in Villeneuve-les-Avignon provided the focal point for many of Mela Muter's landscapes during her time in Avignon. The present work is heavily influenced by Cezanne in it's palette and composition and again by Paul Signac in the restrained watercolour technique, characterised by short strokes, outlines and small blocks of brilliant colour interspersed with areas of blank paper. A similar view was painted by Corot in 1836.

Portrait of Georges Clemenceau

Oil on canvas, mid 1920's

I don't have a date for this work, but judging by the style, the sitter and the distinctive chair which features in other dated works, it is probably mid 1920's. Clemenceau by this point had stepped down as prime minister of France, but he still appears a refined and imposing figure. Muter, as she often did, imbues her sitter's gaze with an element of uncertainty and strips the work of any formality.

Bridge on the Seine, Paris

1930's?

Muter's sparse watercolour technique was heavily influenced by the neo-impressionist Paul Signac. She greatly admired Signac and painted many of the scenes he favoured such as the beach at Collioure and the bridges of Paris. She painted numerous oils and watercolours of the Pont Marie in Paris, of which the above work is probably one.

Portrait of Henri Barbusse, Georges Courteline

1920, reproduced in the May 1924 edition of "Clarté." Muter was heavily involved in left wing politics throughout the 1920's and contributed many drawings to journals such as Clarté, described as "the French bulletin of the International of thought." Henri Barbusse, the acclaimed French novelist responsible for "Le Feu" which many consider the first fictional account of the First World War, was the driving force behind Clarté. Muter took his portrait on several occasions, and also painted many of the other figures in her and Barbusse's political circle - Romain Rolland, Anatole France, Raymond Lefebvre, Rabindranath Tagore etc.

The 1920's and 30's were the high point of Muter's social and working life. She counted politicians and Nobel Prize winners amongst her circle of friends and struggled to keep up with the demand for portrait commissions. During this period she painted the cream of the European artistic and political community - Arthur Honegger, Georges Clemenceau, Bronislaw Huberman, Romain Rolland, Diego Rivera, Edgar Varese, Georges Courteline - to name a few. The Second World War was just around the corner, however, and the euphoria of the 20's and 30's was soon gone.

"Portrait of Georges Courteline" before 1927.