Beschreibung:

44,5 : 32 cm. Original woodcut.

Bemerkung:

One of 50 copies printed on Japon Bunko Shi paper. Very impressive woodcut. Hans Alexander Müller (born March 12, 1888 in Nordhausen; ? July 7, 1962 in New Milford (Connecticut) (USA)) was a German graphic artist and book illustrator. Hans Alexander Müller studied from 1907 to 1911 at the Academy for Graphic Arts and Book Trade in Leipzig. From 1920 to 1922 he worked here as a teacher in the woodcut class. He then received a professorship in woodcut art at the same institution from 1922 to 1933. In 1923 he also became head of the woodcut workshop at the Leipzig Art Academy. His special profession was book illustration. He worked primarily for Leipzig publishers and provided numerous works of world literature with drawings using all printmaking techniques, but preferred wood engravings. His breakthrough came with the illustration of some volumes from the island library. He illustrated works by Honoré de Balzac, Miguel de Cervantes, Adelbert von Chamisso, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Robert Louis Stevenson, Jean Paul, Gottfried Keller, Voltaire and Oscar Wilde as well as some Bible editions. He was particularly fond of miniature depictions of action-packed scenes. He also mostly created the bindings and dust jackets. He also equipped calendars and almanacs. He worked in the styles typical of the time, from Expressionism to Art Deco. Since his wife Maria, née Riethof, was Jewish and he refused to join the NSDAP, his contract at the Leipzig Academy's woodcut workshop was not renewed in 1937. In 1937, his watercolors Fruit Still Life and Houses by the Sea were confiscated and destroyed in the Nazi "Degenerate Art? campaign from the Kassel Municipal Art House. The couple did not return to Germany from a trip to New York, where Müller's friends Rudolf Max Littauer and von Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt had organized an exhibition of his works. In 1938 his book of woodcuts from New York was published. From 1938 to 1958 he taught graphic techniques in German in the "Department of Adult Education? at Columbia University in New York. In 1944, Müller received American citizenship.