Robert O. Muller's Unique Collection of Shin Hanga
Robert O. Muller, a passionate collector and art dealer, represented one of the most important collectors of 20th century Japanese prints who had accumulated the finest and possibly the largest collection of Japanese Shin Hanga prints in the world. His collection comprised over 4500 designs, featuring the artistic developments of the 19th century to the Meiji period (1868-1912).
What is Shin Hanga?
Shin hanga literally means New Prints. This art movement led to the appearance of a new style of Japanese prints from about 1910 until 1960's. The shin hanga style created the union of Western elements with the old Japanese values of traditional woodblock prints. Instead The new movement was not intended at blind imitation of Western art styles but was focused at traditional subjects like landscapes, beautiful women and actor portraits. Viewing European Impressionism as the plentiful source of inspiration, the artists started using the effects of light and expressing individual moods. As the result, a technically impeccable and irresistable new style of Japanese prints was born.
The Unique Collection
Based upon Robert O. Muller's excellent taste and critical attitude this great collection has maintained its quality being stored professionally over all the years. Mr. Muller selected exclusively beautiful prints for the collection not only under business aspects, but up to his personal taste.
All the prints in the collection were created according to the highest quality standard - beautifully designed and often printed with splendid features like embossment or gofun. The collector united in his exclusive collection great who left the world brilliant works of outstanding beauty - created in woodblock technique reflecting a skill level that had been reached by nobody else before in the 200 years of Japanese tradition.
Among his holdings there are the best examples of artists specialized in the portrayal of female beauty such as Goyo, Shinsui and Kotondo, the earliest and nicest works of the two major landscape artists Hasui and Yoshida, as well as a great variety of works by not so well-known artists giving a comprehensive and captivating overview of the Shin hanga style.
The Muller collection reveals treasures that nobody seemed to have noticed in the market before. The Japanese prints' connoisseurs have been surprised to discover hardly known artists like Jo or Ryomi, and other artists like Keinen have suddenly been appreciated for great designs.
On April 10, 2003, Robert O. Muller passed away at the age of 91.
The First Encounter with Shin Hanga
Robert O. Muller, being a college student, became fascinated by Japanese prints in the early 1930s. He was walking down a New York street when he came across Japanese Shin Hanga prints offered by Shima Art Company and spontaneously purchased the first piece. Since that moment he was captured by the passion for Japanese prints and paintings for the rest of his life and throughout his college years, he regularly spent his entire allowance on prints.
Before leaving on his honeymoon trip to Japan, Robert O. Muller had acquired the Shima Art Company in New York and had become an art dealer with the Robert Lee Art Gallery. The inventory of the Shima Company greatly contributed to the growing of Muller collection.
It was no surprise that Robert O. Muller together with his young bride Inge went on a honeymoon trip to Japan in 1940. There he found an opportunity to make acquaintance with the important Japanese print publishers. Among them he met Watanabe Shozaburo, the mentor and business sponsor of the Shin Hanga movement. During this first trip Robert Muller was excited to meet most of the famous Shin Hanga artists, such as Hasui Kawase, Ito Shinsui, Hiroshi Yoshida and the young Shiro Kasamatsu.
It was a good period for buying Japanese prints from publishers and directly from artists that were really happy to sell. The Shin Hanga business of publishers dealt mainly with exporting to the United States, but in 1940 the political climate between Japan and the U.S.A. had resulted in a near standstill of the exports.
During the Pacific war started in December of 1941 with the attack on Pearl Harbor Muller tried to keep a low profile. In 1945 a business in Japanese art still could not have been developed, so the Mullers held sales exhibitions of Japanese prints in some American schools.
The Collection's Success
By the 1960s the Muller art business had become quite successful and well-established and the collection of prints was constantly growing. Robert O. Muller's prudence prompted him with the idea to collect prints from the Meiji period and to kuchi-e (1895-1915). Many art experts and writers of books on Japanese prints thought about the end of the Edo period (1868) to become the end of the Japanese woodblock print and everything created after Utamaro (1750-1806 ) to be commercial mainstream products not worth to be collected.
In the 1980s and 1990s the art world appreciated Muller's great collection and its importance followed by two books published and exhibitions organized. The Muller collection was widely used for research.
Robert O. Muller supported researchers and book writers in their work having made his treasures available for them. He stored the prints and scroll paintings in several safes in a room in a red-painted building next to his home in Connecticut.
After the Death of Robert O. Muller on April 10, 2003, by the collector's will the finest part of collection of 4,000 prints and a large archive of documents had been sent to a museum - the renowned Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian Institute.
Other parts of the collection were presented at the market and may be found in real and virtual galleries as well as in internet auctions since late summer of 2003.
The Muller collection is a statement of the selectivity of an art connoisseur with a strongly subjective eye for evaluating art. In addition to Japanese prints, the collector was interested in Japanese scroll paintings, raku pottery, African and Chinese wood carvings, and other prints, drawings, and paintings of all genres.
