Adolfo Müller-Ury
Encyclopedia
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
painter of roses and still life.
Heritage and early life in Switzerland
He was born Felice Adolfo Müller on March 29, 1862 at AiroloAirolo
Airolo is a municipality in the district of Leventina in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland.-History:In the settlement of Madrano, Roman tombs from the 2nd and 3rd Centuries AD were found. They belonged to a Vicus, whose inhabitants probably collected crystal, which was processed in Locarno into...
, in the Ticino
Ticino
Canton Ticino or Ticino is the southernmost canton of Switzerland. Named after the Ticino river, it is the only canton in which Italian is the sole official language...
in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, into a prominent patrician family whose lineage descended from Alfred the Great
Alfred the Great
Alfred the Great was King of Wessex from 871 to 899.Alfred is noted for his defence of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of southern England against the Vikings, becoming the only English monarch still to be accorded the epithet "the Great". Alfred was the first King of the West Saxons to style himself...
, Charlemagne
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...
and Doge Pietro Orseolo of Venice, through the von Rechburg family (a lady from which family married a Müller) and by the 18th and 19th centuries included mercenaries, lawyers, hoteliers and businessmen. His father was lawyer Carl Alois Müller (1825–1887), Gerichtspräsident (Presiding Judge) of the Cantonal Courts, and his mother Genovefa Lombardi (1836–1920), daughter of Felice Lombardi who was Director of the Hospice on the St Gotthard Pass, which he took over from the Capuchin monks who had run this for centuries. Adolfo was their sixth of nineteen children, most of whom survived infancy. The family spoke Airolese mainly, a local dialect of Ticinese Italian, as well as Swiss-German. His family were Roman Catholic.
Training in Switzerland, Munich, Rome and Paris
After attending the municipal drawing school in the Ticino, and school in SarnenSarnen
Sarnen is the capital of the canton of Obwalden situated on the shores of Lake Sarnen , Switzerland. It has a population of just under 10,000 and is surrounded by countryside and mountains. Sarnen is located 20 km south of Lucerne.- History :...
he was encouraged by the sculptor Vincenzo Vela
Vincenzo Vela
Vincenzo Vela was a Swiss sculptor, active mainly in northern Italy.-Biography:Having started work as a stonecutter when still very young, Vela received his initial training at Viggiù and then moved to Milan, where he worked on the Cathedral and enrolled at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in 1832...
(1820–1891) and possibly the Commendatore Metalli-Stresa (a family friend), to study oil painting under the local painter of religious pictures in a Nazarene-style, Melchior Paul von Deschwanden
Melchior Paul von Deschwanden
Melchior-Paul von Deschwanden was a Swiss religious painter.-Early Life in Switzerland:Deschwanden was born in Stans, in Canton Nidwalden, the son of Johann Baptist Deschwanden and Regina Luthiger...
in Stans
Stans
Stans is the capital of the canton of Nidwalden in Switzerland.-History:Stans is one of the oldest settlements in the entire Nidwalden valley. The first traces of human settlement date to the 2nd Century BC...
in Switzerland (who died in Adolfo's arms in February 1881). On 25 April 1881 he entered the Munich Academy
Academy of Fine Arts, Munich
The Academy of Fine Arts, Munich was founded 1808 by Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria in Munich as the "Royal Academy of Fine Arts" and is one of the oldest and most significant art academies in Germany...
(Register No: 3945) where he stayed 18 months, studying with Professors Alexander Strähuber (1814–82), Alois Gabl (1845–1893), Gyula Benczur
Gyula Benczúr
Gyula Benczúr was a Hungarian painter and pedagogue. He won international success with his first few paintings, winning several competitions. He assisted Karl von Piloty with the frescoes of Maximilianeum and Rathaus in Munich. He also illustrated books by the great German writer, Friedrich...
(1844–1920), and possibly Karl von Piloty
Karl von Piloty
Karl Theodor von Piloty was a German painter.Von Piloty was born in Munich. His father, Ferdinand Piloty , enjoyed a great reputation as a lithographer. In 1840, Karl was admitted as a student of the Munich Academy, under the artists Karl Schorn and Julius Schnorr von Karolsfeld...
; on the same day, a fellow Swiss called Adalbert Baggenstos (1863-1897), who originated from Stans, also registered at the Munich Academy. In later years he always claimed to have studied at the École des Beaux-Arts
École des Beaux-Arts
École des Beaux-Arts refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The most famous is the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, now located on the left bank in Paris, across the Seine from the Louvre, in the 6th arrondissement. The school has a history spanning more than 350 years,...
, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, under Alexandre Cabanel
Alexandre Cabanel
Alexandre Cabanel was a French painter.- Biography :Cabanel was born in Montpellier, Hérault. He painted historical, classical and religious subjects in the academic style. He was also well known as a portrait painter...
in 1884, but this is uncertain, though the Archives Nationales in Paris indicate he applied to use the library, the usual means, at that date, of seeking a master. Between Munich and Paris he spent nearly two years (1882–84) in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, studying and copying Old Masters, and where he apparently painted portraits of Cardinals Joseph Hergenröther
Joseph Hergenröther
Joseph Hergenröther was a German Church historian and canonist, and the first Cardinal-Prefect of the Vatican Archives.-Biography:...
and Gustav Adolf Hohenlohe who were acquaintances of his uncle Josef, a Domherr in Chur, Switzerland. It is sometimes alleged he painted Pope Leo XIII at this time.
His known early work is necessarily varied, and includes pictures in the style of Deschwanden (usually signed Müller, Adolfo), academic drawings executed in Munich (usually signed Ad. Müller), copies of Old Masters, and early independent oils, sometimes was influenced by artist's like Robert Zünd
Robert Zünd
Robert Zünd was one of the most important Swiss painters of the 19th Century.-Life:Zünd was the son of a middle class family. After attending high school in Lucerne, he was taught drawing and painting in the studio of James Schwegler...
(1827–1909) and Frank Buchser
Frank Buchser
Frank Buchser was a Swiss painter.-References:*This article was initially translated from the German Wikipedia....
(1828–1890) which includes landscapes, genre and religious pictures. Many of these survive in the ancestral home of the Müllers in Hospental
Hospental
Hospental is a municipality in the canton of Uri in Switzerland.-History:Hospental is first mentioned in 1285 as Hospenthal. In 1499 it was mentioned under its latin name as Hospicium, and in 1616 as Spithal.-Geography:...
, Switzerland, and with surviving members of his family in the St Gotthard and elsewhere.
Early career
Whilst in Paris in late 1884 he decided to visit AmericaUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. He arrived first in Milwaukee, and then visited Chicago and St Paul, Minnesota where he had relatives. In 1885 he went to Baltimore to paint Cardinal James Gibbons for the first time and in 1886 completed a full-length portrait which was given to the Cardinal for his residence after being exhibited at Schaus's Gallery in New York (missing). At around this time he was travelling all over the eastern United States painting and executed a very large canvas of the Bushkill Falls in Pennsylvania (Von der Heydt Museum
Von der Heydt Museum
Von der Heydt Museum is a museum in Wuppertal, Germany.The Von der Heydt Museum includes works by 19th and 20th century artists. The first of Pablo Picasso’s works that ever appeared in public was displayed here.-External links:*...
, Wuppertal, Germany). Luckily for the artist, his talent for portraiture was soon noticed by the St. Paul railroad builder James J. Hill
James J. Hill
James Jerome Hill , was a Canadian-American railroad executive. He was the chief executive officer of a family of lines headed by the Great Northern Railway, which served a substantial area of the Upper Midwest, the northern Great Plains, and Pacific Northwest...
, who was to commission or acquire many pictures of himself, his family, his friends and business associates, like the Canadian missionary Father Albert Lacombe
Albert Lacombe
Albert Lacombe , commonly known in Alberta simply as Father Lacombe, was a French-Canadian Roman Catholic missionary who lived among and evangelized the Cree and Blackfoot First Nations of western Canada...
in 1895, and John Stewart Kennedy
John Stewart Kennedy
John Stewart Kennedy was an American capitalist and philanthropist.-Biography:He was born near Glasgow in Scotland, received a scant education in school, studied in his spare moments as a clerk, and at 20 was sent to America by a London iron firm, in whose branch house in Glasgow he worked for...
the financier in 1901.
In the Newark Museum
Newark Museum
The Newark Museum is the largest museum in New Jersey, USA. It holds fine collections of American art, decorative arts, contemporary art, and arts of Asia, Africa, the Americas, and the ancient world...
, New Jersey is a portrait of a little girl dressed in pink called Miss Brandeis which is probably his first commissioned picture made in America (it is signed with a variation of his family name, A. Lombardi-Muller), though a portrait of Father Joseph Fransioli, who was minister to the large influx of Italian-speaking immigrants arriving in New York, today at the Brooklyn Historical Society
Brooklyn Historical Society
Founded in 1863, the Brooklyn Historical Society is a museum, library, and educational center preserving and encouraging the study of Brooklyn's rich 400-year past. The Brooklyn Historical Society houses materials relating to the history of Brooklyn and its people. These holdings supply...
, was possibly completed before this as it is signed Adolph Muller. It would seem that from quite early on he wanted to sign his works in a way that was unique to him, and so portraits between 1886 and 1889 are sometimes signed A. Muller-Uri, or Muller d'Uri. By 1890 this was fully anglicized as A. Muller-Ury, the umlaut in his surname being dropped. Some of his later smaller works are signed A M Ury. (It should be noted that as late as 1932, the Swiss-American Historical Society published a book on Swiss-Americans where his name was inaccurately stated as Adolph Felix Muller-Uri.) In 1889 he painted a portrait of John R. Brady
John R. Brady
John R. Brady was an American judge, a Justice of the New York Supreme Court, and best known for administering the presidential oath of office to Chester A. Arthur. Brady was born in New York City, and was a New York Supreme Court Justice from 1873 until his death.-Chester Alan Arthur:President...
a New York Judge which was apparently presented to the American Bar Association. He may have travelled in North Africa in the summer of 1889 after visiting the Exposition Universelle
Exposition Universelle (1889)
The Exposition Universelle of 1889 was a World's Fair held in Paris, France from 6 May to 31 October 1889.It was held during the year of the 100th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, an event traditionally considered as the symbol for the beginning of the French Revolution...
as he dated a Portrait of an Arab (Private Collection, London) that year and exhibited a picture called In the Dark Continent at the National Academy of Design in New York at the end of that year (lost). In 1890 he completed a second bust-length portrait of the Ticinese-born Father Joseph Fransioli of Brooklyn (lost).
His New York studio 1885-1904 was in the Sherwood Studio Building, 58 West 57th Street and 6th Avenue (the building has been long demolished), where he is noted before 1889 in Room C; by 1894 he had a studio with a waiting room (both lit by windows) and a bedroom. Other artists who rented studios in the building in the 1880s were his friend from Munich Jan Chełmiński (who later married the sister of art dealer Roland Knoedler), the landscape painter Robert W. Van Boskerck, James Carroll Beckwith
James Carroll Beckwith
James Carroll Beckwith was an American landscape, portrait and genre painter whose Impressionist style led to his recognition in the late nineteenth century as a prominent figure in American art.-Biography:...
, painter turned photographer Edwin Howland Blashfield, and painter turned critic Arthur Hoeber
Arthur Hoeber
Arthur Hoeber was a United States painter best known for his writing on art-related subjects.-Biography:...
, and later artists like Carle Blenner and fellow portraitist George Burroughs Torrey
George Burroughs Torrey
George Burroughs Torrey was an American painter, best known for his portraits. He has been called the "painter of presidents", because he painted portraits of Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft, and Herbert Hoover.- Biography :...
.
For a number of years he commuted between New York and Europe, but after the great success of his portraits of Senator Chauncey M. Depew in 1890 (Yale Club of New York City
Yale Club of New York City
The Yale Club of New York City, commonly called the Yale Club, is a private club in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA Its membership is restricted almost entirely to alumni and faculty of Yale University, University of Virginia and Dartmouth College...
) and Mrs Theodore Havemeyer in 1891 (now the property of the Preservation Society of Newport County, Rhode Island), in 1892 he applied for American citizenship. It was at this time that he began to be dubbed 'Painter to the Four Hundred', referring the elite of New York society in whose circles he socialized. He was much aided by the Havemeyers and also by the Roman Catholic publisher Louis Benziger, who persuaded many New Yorkers to sit to him; he remained friendly with his son Bruno Benziger until his death, and indeed Bruno Benziger organized the artist's burial.
For three years in the late 1890s he leased one of the studios in Pembroke Studios in Kensington, London where he certainly painted portraits of Donald Smith
Donald Smith
Donald Smith may refer to:* Donald Smith , head college football coach at Kentucky State University * Donald Smith , English cricketer* Donald Smith , Australian tenor...
, 1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal, and Lord Mount Stephen
George Stephen, 1st Baron Mount Stephen
George Stephen, 1st Baron of Mount Stephen , known as Sir Stephen, between 1778 and 1891.-Canadian Pacific Railway syndicate:...
who were business associates of James J. Hill, of whom he made an etching
Etching
Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal...
in London in 1898 which was distributed to Hill's family and colleagues. According to a letter he wrote to Hill he started the portrait of María Consuelo Iznaga Clemens
Maria Consuelo Iznaga Clemens
Doña María Consuelo Iznaga y Clement, Duchess of Manchester was a Cuban-American woman who married the then-Viscount Mandeville and later became known as the Duchess of Manchester...
, the 8th Duchess of Manchester, in London in 1898, but it is not known if it was ever completed.
In 1903 he was one of a group of artists who invested in a new studio building, the Atelier Building, 33 West 67th Street. Muller-Ury lived in the top floor right studio, and incorporated a stained glass panel of the Müller coat-of-arms into the window (removed in 1947 and now at the Haus Müller in Hospental
Hospental
Hospental is a municipality in the canton of Uri in Switzerland.-History:Hospental is first mentioned in 1285 as Hospenthal. In 1499 it was mentioned under its latin name as Hospicium, and in 1616 as Spithal.-Geography:...
, Switzerland). The floors were all inlaid with borders of intarsia, and the smaller windows given mullions. The main studio, facing north, has a huge fireplace, a balcony—leading to his private quarters—from which the artist hung Persian rugs, and on the walls he hung Gobelin tapestries and copies of pictures by Velasquez that he copied in Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
in 1911 and 1913. He had a library where sitters could wait, and a dining room. He moved into the studio in 1904 and remained there until 1947.
Painter of prominent people
His reputation remains based on his portraits of prominent personages in EuropeEurope
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and America.
Political figures:
- Emperor William II (1909, at the New Palace, Potsdam) given to Columbia University's Deutsches Haus by the Neue-Yorker Staats Zeitung who commissioned it, but missing since the 1960s; the bust-length oil sketch is now at the Max-Planck Institute in Berlin.
- President William McKinleyWilliam McKinleyWilliam McKinley, Jr. was the 25th President of the United States . He is best known for winning fiercely fought elections, while supporting the gold standard and high tariffs; he succeeded in forging a Republican coalition that for the most part dominated national politics until the 1930s...
seated in 1899 (lost), the standing version (1900, redated 1901) is now at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington - General Ulysses S. GrantUlysses S. GrantUlysses S. Grant was the 18th President of the United States as well as military commander during the Civil War and post-war Reconstruction periods. Under Grant's command, the Union Army defeated the Confederate military and ended the Confederate States of America...
(1897) since 1899 at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington (a fine head study was in a Private Collection in New York until 1975) - Varina HowellVarina HowellVarina Banks Howell Davis was an American author who was best known as the First Lady of the Confederate States of America, second wife of President Jefferson Davis.-Childhood:...
(Mrs Jefferson Davis) in 1895 (Beauvoir, Biloxi, Mississippi) and her daughter Winnie Davis in 1897–98 (Museum of the Confederacy, Richmond, Virginia, gift of the artist 1918) - Theodore RooseveltTheodore RooseveltTheodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
(Collection of Edmund Morris) - Edith Galt (Mrs Woodrow Wilson) (a wedding present from Colonel Edward M. HouseEdward M. HouseEdward Mandell House was an American diplomat, politician, and presidential advisor. Commonly known by the title of Colonel House, although he had no military experience, he had enormous personal influence with U.S...
, 1916) now at the White House - Mrs Edward M. House
- President WilsonWoodrow WilsonThomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
delivering his "war speech" before Congress on April 3, 1917 (at the League of Nations in Geneva, the gift of Lord Duveen in 1935), and a smaller version painted at the same time was given by the artist in 1943 to Mrs Cordell HullCordell HullCordell Hull was an American politician from the U.S. state of Tennessee. He is best known as the longest-serving Secretary of State, holding the position for 11 years in the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during much of World War II...
for the Woodrow Wilson Birthplace Foundation in Staunton, Virginia - President Benjamin Harrison's granddaughter Mary Lodge McKee Reisinger
Several Swiss politicians who became Presidents:
- Louis RuchonnetLouis RuchonnetAntoine Louis John Ruchonnet was a Swiss politician.He was first elected to the Swiss Federal Council on 10 December 1875, but declined the election. He was elected again and accepted the election on March 3, 1881 and died in office on September 14, 1893...
(Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne) - Bernhard HammerBernhard HammerBernhard Hammer was a Swiss politician.He was elected to the Federal Council of Switzerland on December 10, 1875, and handed over office on December 31, 1890...
- Giuseppe MottaGiuseppe MottaGiuseppe Motta was a Swiss politician, member of the Swiss Federal Council and President of the League of Nations .-Commemoration:...
, a three-quarter seated portrait, in 1938 for the authorities in Bellinzona (now in the Archivio Cantonale, Bellinzona), as well as a half-length portrait in 1939 which is now in the Adolfo Müller-Ury Siftung, Hospental.
He also painted the first permanent diplomatic representative of Switzerland in the United Kingdom, then Swiss Minister in London, Dr Charles Daniel Bourcart of Basel (now at the Swiss Embassy in London).
The Roman Catholic Hierarchy:
- Francesco SatolliFrancesco SatolliFrancesco Satolli was an Italian Roman Catholic theologian, professor, Cardinal and the first Apostolic delegate to the United States.-Biography:He was born on 21 July 1839, at Marsciano near Perugia...
(Cardinal Satolli) first Papal Nuncio in the United States (three-quarter seated, 1893) - Pope Pius XPope Pius XPope Saint Pius X , born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto, was the 257th Pope of the Catholic Church, serving from 1903 to 1914. He was the first pope since Pope Pius V to be canonized. Pius X rejected modernist interpretations of Catholic doctrine, promoting traditional devotional practices and orthodox...
in 1907 (North American College, Rome) which was a commission from Mrs Anne WeightmanAnne WeightmanAnne Weightman Walker Penfield , was a philanthropist, and one of the richest women in world.-Biography:She was born in 1884 to William Weightman....
Walker of Philadelphia, again in 1908 (St Joseph's Seminary, Yonkers) and in 1911 (Catholic University of America, Washington) all three-quarters seated; also a number of smaller head and shoulder portraits painted in these years - Papal Secretary of State Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val in 1907 (Historisches Museum von Uri, Altdorf)
- Archbishop Dr. Thomas F. Kennedy, 1907 (St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, Overbrook, PA) and 1911 (North American College, Rome)
- Monsignor Gaetano BisletiGaetano BisletiGaetano Bisleti S.T.D. was a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church and was former Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education.Gaetano Bisleti was born in Veroli, Italy...
- Cardinal John Murphy Farley (1913)
- Désiré-Joseph MercierDésiré-Joseph Mercier-Early life and ordination:Désiré Mercier was born at the château du Castegier in Braine-l'Alleud, as the fifth of the seven children of Paul-Léon Mercier and his wife Anne-Marie Barbe Croquet....
(Cardinal Mercier) during his visit to the United States, often misleadingly stated to be at Catholic University at WashingtonThe Catholic University of AmericaThe Catholic University of America is a private university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States. It is a pontifical university of the Catholic Church in the United States and the only institution of higher education founded by the U.S. Catholic bishops...
but actually in Switzerland at the Stiftung Adolfo Müller-Ury in HospentalHospentalHospental is a municipality in the canton of Uri in Switzerland.-History:Hospental is first mentioned in 1285 as Hospenthal. In 1499 it was mentioned under its latin name as Hospicium, and in 1616 as Spithal.-Geography:...
, Canton Uri - Pope Benedict XVPope Benedict XVPope Benedict XV , born Giacomo Paolo Giovanni Battista della Chiesa, reigned as Pope from 3 September 1914 to 22 January 1922...
in 1920 (Catholic University of America, Washington) and at the Stiftung Adolfo Müller-Ury in HospentalHospentalHospental is a municipality in the canton of Uri in Switzerland.-History:Hospental is first mentioned in 1285 as Hospenthal. In 1499 it was mentioned under its latin name as Hospicium, and in 1616 as Spithal.-Geography:...
, Canton Uri - Monsignor Charles O'Hern, 1920 (North American College, Rome)
- Pope Pius XIPope Pius XIPope Pius XI , born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, was Pope from 6 February 1922, and sovereign of Vatican City from its creation as an independent state on 11 February 1929 until his death on 10 February 1939...
in 1923 for which he was made a Knight of St Gregory the Great (two versions, the bust-length at St Joseph's Seminary, Yonkers and North American College, Rome; the standing version at the Historisches Museum von Uri, Altdorf [but dated later]), and full-length seated in 1930 for which he was raised to the title of Papal Count - this portrait was painted expressly to hang permanently in the Nuova Pinacoteca but is no longer in the Vatican storerooms - Cardinal Patrick Joseph Hayes (1924, cut down, Cardinal's Residence, NYC)
- in 1930 he also painted his friend Cardinal Bonaventura CerrettiBonaventura CerrettiBonaventura Cerretti was an Italian Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura from 1931 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1925....
Famous international opera singers:
- Emma CalvéEmma CalvéEmma Calvé, born Rosa Emma Calvet , was a French operatic soprano.Calvé was probably the most famous French female opera singer of the Belle Époque. Hers was an international career, and she sang regularly and to considerable acclaim at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, and the Royal Opera...
(full-length, 1894) - Pol PlançonPol PlançonPol-Henri Plançon was a distinguished French operatic bass . He was one of the most acclaimed singers active during the 1880s, 1890s and early 20th century—a period often referred to as the "Golden Age of Opera".In addition to being among the earliest international opera stars to have made...
(1897), a commission from Emma Marcy RaymondEmma Marcy RaymondEmma P. Marcy Raymond was an American composer of operetta, songs and piano music.She was born in March 1856 , the oldest daughter of Dr. Erastus Egerton Marcy and Emeline Marcy of New York...
the composer of the operettas Doretta and The Sheik - Marcella SembrichMarcella SembrichMarcella Sembrich was the stage name of the Polish coloratura soprano, Prakseda Marcelina Kochańska...
(1899, twice), - Lina CavalieriLina CavalieriLina Cavalieri was an Italian operatic soprano and diseuse known for her grace and beauty.-Biography:...
(1907, Metropolitan Opera House, New York) - Dame Nellie MelbaNellie MelbaDame Nellie Melba GBE , born Helen "Nellie" Porter Mitchell, was an Australian operatic soprano. She became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian Era and the early 20th century...
(1908) - Frances AldaFrances AldaFrances Alda was a New Zealand-born, Australian-raised operatic soprano. She achieved fame during the first three decades of the 20th century due to her outstanding singing voice, fine technique and colourful personality—and frequent onstage partnerships at the New York Metropolitan Opera with the...
(1910)
Popular actresses:
- Glacia Calla (Roy)
- Lillian RussellLillian RussellLillian Russell was an American actress and singer. She became one of the most famous actresses and singers of the late 19th century and early 20th century, known for her beauty and style, as well as for her voice and stage presence.Russell was born in Iowa but raised in Chicago...
(1902) - Margaret IllingtonMargaret IllingtonMargaret Illington ill-ing-ton was a stage actress popular in the first decade of the 20th century. She later made an attempt at silent film acting by making two films with Adolph Zukor's Famous Players-Lasky franchise...
(1906) at the time of her first marriage to the theatre manager Daniel FrohmanDaniel FrohmanDaniel Frohman was a Jewish American theatrical producer and manager, and an early film producer.Frohman was born in Sandusky, Ohio...
.
Other sitters include:
- Benjamin AltmanBenjamin AltmanBenjamin Altman was born and died in New York City. He was the son of Bavarian Jews who emigrated to America in 1835 and opened a small store on Attorney Street in NYC....
, department store owner and art collector (the portrait of Altman seated in his gallery with a vase on a table beside him was given to the Altman Foundation in 1913 but is now missing - a smaller portrait is in the New York State Museum at Albany) - A. F. De Bernasconi Corti and his wife (a Swiss millionaire who had made a fortune in Buenos Aires).
- Stephen BirchStephen BirchStephen Birch was the President of the Kennecott Copper Company and one of the most revered business men of his time. “Stephen Birch was one of the thousands who came north in 1898 seeking their fortunes. He found his high in the Wrangell Mountains of Alaska. Most sought wealth in gold; Birch...
President of the Kennecott Mining Co. (1911) - Mrs. Hobart Chatfield-Taylor, daughter of Senator Farwell of Chicago, wife of a popular novelist
- James Constable (two versions, three-quarter seated in the American Museum of Natural History, New York; a bust-length in the New York State Museum at Albany)
- Margaret French Cresson, the sculptress daughter of Daniel Chester FrenchDaniel Chester FrenchDaniel Chester French was an American sculptor. His best-known work is the sculpture of a seated Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.-Life and career:...
(1912, formerly at Chesterwood) - Marcus DalyMarcus DalyMarcus Daly redirects here, see also Marcus Daly Marcus Daly was an Irish-born American businessman known as one of the three "Copper Kings" of Butte, Montana, United States.- Early life:...
, the copper magnate (half-length, Mineral Museum, Montana Tech at the University of Montana, Butte) - Senator Chauncey M. Depew many times and both of his wives (Mr. Depew was also etched)
- a full-length of Dorothy Duveen as a girl in 1914 and another bust-length at the time of her engagement in 1924
- Elizabeth Wharton DrexelElizabeth Wharton DrexelElizabeth Wharton Drexel was an American author and Manhattan socialite.- Birth :She was the daughter of Lucy Wharton and Joseph William Drexel...
(Mrs John Vinton Dahlgren) (Georgetown University, Washington DC) - Mrs Louis Ehret and her son
- Mrs Karl Evans (1904, for her paternal grandmother Nancy Ganson - the sitter became famous later as Mabel Dodge LuhanMabel Dodge LuhanMabel Evans Dodge Sterne Luhan , née Ganson was a wealthy American patron of the arts. She is particularly associated with the Taos art colony.-Early life:...
, patron of the avant-garde and correspondent of Gertrude SteinGertrude SteinGertrude Stein was an American writer, poet and art collector who spent most of her life in France.-Early life:...
) - Charles Mather Ffoulke, manufacturer and collector of the Barberini tapestries
- Michael Friedsam, department store owner and art collector
- Commodore Elbridge Thomas GerryElbridge Thomas GerryElbridge Thomas Gerry was an American reformer.-Biography:In 1860 he was admitted to the New York State Bar Association. He became an adviser to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals...
(New York Yacht Club) - Mrs James D. Goin, daughter of Samuel N. Pike, builder of Pike's Opera HousePike's Opera HousePike's Opera House, later renamed the Grand Opera House, was a theatre in New York City on the northwest corner of 8th Avenue and 23rd Street, in Chelsea, Manhattan.His other Pike's Opera House, in Cincinnati, burned in the Great Fire of Cincinnati, in 1866. Rebuilt after the fire, and the first...
, and sister of artist Alice Pike BarneyAlice Pike BarneyAlice Pike Barney was an American painter. She was active in Washington, D.C. and worked to make Washington into a center of the arts.... - Thomas Watt GregoryThomas Watt GregoryThomas Watt Gregory was an American attorney and Cabinet Secretary.-Biography:Born in Crawfordsville, Mississippi, he graduated from The Webb School in Bell Buckle, TN in 1881, Southwestern Presbyterian University in 1883, and was a special student at the University of Virginia...
, US Attorney General (1917, Department of Justice, Washington) - Marcus Alonzo Hanna (1902/3, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio)
- James J. HillJames J. HillJames Jerome Hill , was a Canadian-American railroad executive. He was the chief executive officer of a family of lines headed by the Great Northern Railway, which served a substantial area of the Upper Midwest, the northern Great Plains, and Pacific Northwest...
many times, the finest portrait of whom he painted in 1902 and was formerly in the collection of the New York Chamber of Commerce and now hangs at the offices of Credit Suisse First Boston in New York - Mr David H. Hostetter, heir to Hostetter's Bitters and successful oilman, and later his wife Miriam
- Charles F. Hoffman (Union Club, New York)
- Emily Key Hoffman, mother of fashion expert Diana VreelandDiana VreelandDiana Vreeland was a noted columnist and editor in the field of fashion. She worked for the fashion magazines Harper's Bazaar and Vogue and the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.Born as Diana Dalziel, Vreeland was the eldest daughter of American socialite mother Emily Key Hoffman...
- Charles Evans HughesCharles Evans HughesCharles Evans Hughes, Sr. was an American statesman, lawyer and Republican politician from New York. He served as the 36th Governor of New York , Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States , United States Secretary of State , a judge on the Court of International Justice , and...
US Chief Justice (Michigan Historical Museum, Lansing) - Elise Ladew, later Mrs William R. Grace, whose brother was gardener Harvey LadewHarvey LadewHarvey Smith Ladew II was an American topiary enthusiast, and a fox hunting enthusiast, who created the Ladew Topiary Gardens in Monkton, Maryland.-Biography:Ladew was born in New York City to Edward R. Ladew...
, friend of King Edward VIII - Mrs Thomas B. Lockwood [posthumously 1934] and somewhat earlier her mother Mrs George K. Birge (Poetry/Rare Book Collection, State University of New York at Buffalo)
- William d'Alton MannWilliam d'Alton MannWilliam d'Alton Mann was an American Civil War soldier, businessman, and newspaper and magazine publisher....
the editor of Town TopicsTown Topics (magazine)Town Topics: The Journal of Society was a magazine published in New York City by William d'Alton Mann and others from 1879 to 1937 . Title varies: Andrew's American Queen; Art, Music, Literature and Society ; and American Queen Town Topics: The Journal of Society was a magazine published in New... - William R. Merriam of St. Paul (Minnesota Historical Society)
- J. Pierpont MorganJ. P. MorganJohn Pierpont Morgan was an American financier, banker and art collector who dominated corporate finance and industrial consolidation during his time. In 1892 Morgan arranged the merger of Edison General Electric and Thomson-Houston Electric Company to form General Electric...
some eight times from 1904 (all missing), and with his granddaughter Mabel Satterlee - Mrs Frederick Neilson, mother of Mrs Reginald Vanderbilt
- Lewis NixonLewis Nixon (naval architect)Lewis Nixon I was a naval architect, shipbuilding executive, public servant, and political activist. He designed the United States' first modern battleships, and supervised the construction of its first modern submarines, all before his 40th birthday. He was briefly the leader of Tammany Hall...
, naval constructor - also a full-length of his son Stanhope Wood NixonStanhope Wood NixonStanhope Wood Nixon was a vice president of the Nixon Nitration Works during the 1924 Nixon Nitration Works disaster. He later became chairman of the board.-Biography:...
in Scottish costume - Judge Morgan O'Brien (twice) and his daughter Madeleine O'Brien (later Mrs Stuart D. Preston)
- Lily Oelrichs, later Mrs Peter Martin and Duchess of Mecklenburg
- Oswald OttendorferOswald OttendorferValentin Oswald Ottendorfer was a United States journalist associated with the development of the German-language New Yorker Staats-Zeitung into a major newspaper.-Education:...
of the Neue-Yorker Staats-Zeitung (twice) - Jesse Maxwell Overton and his wife Sadie Williams Overton of Nashville, TN (1903)
- Judge Alton B. ParkerAlton B. ParkerAlton Brooks Parker was an American lawyer, judge and the Democratic nominee for U.S. president in the 1904 elections.-Life:...
(two versions) - Madame Felipe Pardo Y Barreda, the wife of the Vice-President of Peru, with her daughter Ana (1917)
- Alice Pfizer, daughter of Charles PfizerCharles PfizerCharles Pfizer was a German chemist who immigrated to the United States in the early 1840s and founded the Pfizer Inc. pharmaceutical company in 1849 as Charles Pfizer & Co. He remained at its head until 1900, when the company was incorporated and Charles Pfizer, Jr. became its first president....
Sr. and pharmaceuticals heiress, later Baroness Bachofen-Echt (Private Collection, London) - Lulu Pfizer, daughter of Charles Pfizer Jr., and first wife of Major General Spencer Edmund HollondSpencer Edmund HollondMajor General Spencer Edmund Hollond CB, CMG, DSO was a British Army staff officer during the First World War.-Life:...
CB, CMG, DSO - the daughters of Dallas Bache Pratt (Katharine, later Mrs Lycurgus Winchester 1902, and Constance, later Mrs Walter Stillman 1904)
- George Lockhart Rives (1915, Columbia University)
- William Culver Roberts Jr. who had published the immensely popular The Boy’s Account of It: A Chronicle of Foreign Travel by an Eight-Year Old in 1909
- Cornelia Ruppert, of the New York brewing family, posthumously, the first wife of the conductor Nahan FrankoNahan FrankoNahan Franko was an American violinist, conductor and concert promoter. His brother was violinist and conductor Sam Franko.Franko was born in New Orleans, and studied the violin in Europe with Joseph Joachim and August Wilhelmj...
- Count Antoine Seilern alone, and with his two older brothers Charles and Oswald when children, their mother Antoinette, aunt Carola Woerishoffer and grandmother, Mrs Charles Woerishoffer
- Susan Steell, daughter of dramatist and writer Willis SteellWillis SteellWillis Steell was an American journalist, poet, dramatist, novelist and translator.-Literary Career:He seems to have begun his literary career in New York as a journalist on the New York Tribune from 1887 to 1888, and soon became the New York correspondent for the Albany Press, St...
and friend of Katharine HepburnKatharine HepburnKatharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies... - Natica Terry, later Countess Stanislas de Castellane, and her mother Madame Francesco Terry y Sanchez of the Château de RochecotteChâteau de RochecotteThe château de Rochecotte is a late 18th century château located in the French village of Saint-Patrice, near Langeais, in Indre-et-Loire. It is known for its various owners and their many successive rebuilds....
, France (Private Collection, London) - Mrs Benjamin Thaw (1915) and Alexander Blair Thaw (posthumously, 1918)
- Mr and Mrs William Scheide and Mr and Mrs John H. Scheide (apparently in Princeton, New Jersey)
- William WeightmanWilliam WeightmanWilliam Weightman I was a chemical manufacturer and one of the largest landowners in the United States.-Biography:...
(manufacturing chemist, posthumously) of Philadelphia, and his daughter Mrs Anne Walker (later Mrs Frederic Courtland PenfieldFrederic Courtland Penfield-Biography:He was born in Connecticut, on April 23, 1855 to Daniel Penfield and Sophia Young. He was the United States vice consul in London in 1885.He married Katharine Albert McMurdo Welles in 1892...
) with her niece Mrs Richard Waln Meirs - Mr and Mrs Henri P. Wertheim
- William Henry White (Lotos ClubLotos ClubThe Lotos Club is a gentleman's club in New York City. Founded in 1870 by a young group of writers and critics, Mark Twain, an early member, called it the "Ace of Clubs"...
, New York) - Miss Olive Whitman as a baby (Preservation Society, Newport) and her father Senator Charles S. WhitmanCharles S. WhitmanCharles Seymour Whitman served as the 41st Governor of New York from January 1915 to December 1918. He was also a delegate to Republican National Convention from New York in 1916.-Biography:...
(New York State Capitol at Albany) - Captain Gilbert C. Wiltse, who raised the U.S. flag on Honolulu in January 1893
- Mrs Clark Williams (Williams College, MA)
- Lady Frederick Williams-Taylor (1917) of Montreal, grandmother of Depression-era debutante Brenda FrazierBrenda FrazierNot to be confused with actor Brendan FraserBrenda Diana Duff Frazier was an American debutante popular during the Depression era...
Assessment of his pre-1925 work
Any assessment of Muller-Ury's evolving style from the time he arrived in New York in late 1884 until 1925 remains quite difficult due to the few examples of his brush that have survived or been displayed in museums and private collections in a good enough state of preservation. The portrait of Father Joseph Fransioli in Brooklyn and Miss Brandeis in Newark technically reflect his Munich training, are highly coloured and set against dark backgrounds, but the positioning of the figures is tentative if not awkward. Photographs of his works from the time he painted the portrait of Chauncey M. Depew now at The Yale Club in New York to the time he painted J. Pierpoint Morgan in 1904, give some substance to the comment in the National Cyclopedia of American Biography (1904) that his portraits were 'remarkable for their boldness and likeness to life'. They certainly reflected Gilded Age notions of grandeur, the portraits emulating old masters like Hals, Titian and Velasquez. After 1901, particularly in his female portraiture, when a light, Anglo-French, Georgian taste became fashionable, his portraits emulate Gainsborough, Reynolds, Hoppner and Romney, even some of the 18th century French masters, the palette lighter, frequently oval, and the poses sometimes derivative. Up to 1914 he painted some of his most accomplished portraits, and this may be considered his most successful period. After the World War I his pictures remain bold and life-like, but no change was stylistically more drastic than that following his move to California in 1924-5.Painter of roses and still lifes
The first printed evidence that Müller-Ury painted still-lifes is in an article in the Budget, Boston, dated August 2, 1896: ‘...Mr. Müller-Ury, the portrait painter, who has just returned from abroad, has taken an attractive studio in Everett street, Newport, the one occupied by Mr. Harper Pennington last season. Mr. Müller-Ury’s roses as well as his portraits are admired, and he is painting a huge basket of American Beauties for the Havemeyer villa.’ In a surviving photograph of the artist’s studio in the Sherwood taken in 1894 (a portrait of Monsignor Satolli is on the easel next to it) there is huge still life, and in a letter from his studio to James J. Hill dated 12 August 1895 (Hill Papers, St. Paul, MN) he says that he hopes that the 'flower peace [sic]' he sent to him 'will suit for the place intended for', further evidence that he had painted some still lifes before 1896.After 1918 the style of his still lifes becomes more impressionistic
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
and usually depict roses in Chinese vases from the former collection of J. Pierpont Morgan that he copied at the galleries of Duveen Brothers in New York (Duveen's exhibited the Morgan collection in 1919). The roses were claimed by the soprano Jessica Dragonette
Jessica Dragonette
Jessica Dragonette was a singer who became popular on American radio and was active in the World War II effort.-Early life and career:...
in her autobiography (1951) to be the varieties American Beauty (red), La France (pink), Belle of Portugal (pale pink), Claudius, Killarney (rose pink), and Boucher-Pierné, but there were others. Many of his impressionistic rose paintings were created after he moved to California.
Californian sojourn
In March 1922 he travelled with Sir Joseph Duveen (later Lord Duveen) to California for the first time, in order that Duveen could deliver to bibliophile and art collector Henry E. HuntingtonHenry E. Huntington
Henry Edwards Huntington was a railroad magnate and collector of art and rare books. Born in Oneonta, New York, Huntington settled in Los Angeles, where he owned the Pacific Electric Railway as well as substantial real estate interests...
Gainsborough's famous picture The Blue Boy which Huntington had bought the previous year. Duveen had promised the artist that Huntington would commission a portrait of himself. He did not.
However, Müller-Ury liked Califormia and after painting Archbishop Edward Joseph Hanna
Edward Joseph Hanna
Edward Joseph Hanna was an American clergyman of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of San Francisco from 1915 to 1935.-Early life and education:...
in San Francisco in 1923 decided the following year to erect a studio near Huntington's estate. The studio he built was at the corner of Monterey and Shenandoah Roads in San Marino
San Marino
San Marino, officially the Republic of San Marino , is a state situated on the Italian Peninsula on the eastern side of the Apennine Mountains. It is an enclave surrounded by Italy. Its size is just over with an estimated population of over 30,000. Its capital is the City of San Marino...
(architect Carleton Winslow
Carleton Winslow
Carleton Monroe Winslow , also known as Carleton Winslow Sr., was an American architect, and key proponent of Spanish Colonial Revival architecture in Southern California in the early 20th Century....
), in the fashionable Spanish style with a green tiled roof and in the studio an enormous north-facing window. He placed the Muller coat-of-arms on the east frontage, where it may be found today. The gardens were extensively planted with many varieties of roses including Radiance, Columbia, Rose Marie, Irish Charm, Imperial Potentate and American Beauty which he painted into his canvases depicting the Morgan porcelains begun in New York.
Here, during the following years, he executed portraits of Huntington's granddaughter Mary Brockway Metcalf, the diplomat Henry Mauris Robinson, Anita Baldwin (daughter of 'Lucky Baldwin' of Arcadia, full-length), Maurice DeMond (founder of the Breakfast Club then in Griffiths Park), and President Rufus B. von KleinSmid
Rufus B. von KleinSmid
Rufus Bernhard von KleinSmid was the Seventh President of the University of Arizona . and the Fifth President of the University of Southern California ....
(1931) of the University of Southern California (three-quarter length; deaccessioned by the university in the 1980s). In 1926 he seems to have begun from a photograph a portrait of Henry E. Huntington standing (now at the Howard Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena) and a seated one (which was engraved by Witherspoon) as well as a smaller seated version which was acquired by John and Elizabeth Huntington Metcalf. In 1930 he painted the former Miss Gladys Quarré of San Francisco (then Mrs Frederick Peabody of Montecito, Santa Barbara); later she became known as Gladys Quarré Knapp, the socialite friend of many Hollywood actors like Basil Rathbone
Basil Rathbone
Sir Basil Rathbone, KBE, MC, Kt was an English actor. He rose to prominence in England as a Shakespearean stage actor and went on to appear in over 70 films, primarily costume dramas, swashbucklers, and, occasionally, horror films...
and Edward G. Robinson
Edward G. Robinson
Edward G. Robinson was a Romanian-born American actor. A popular star during Hollywood's Golden Age, he is best remembered for his roles as gangsters, such as Rico in his star-making film Little Caesar and as Rocco in Key Largo...
. He also painted a large allegorical work entitled The Spirit of California a version of which was acquired by a man called Fred Keeler.
He abandoned the studio for the last time on September 3, 1933, after which it was let to friends. He sold it in January 1947 for about half its value because nobody was prepared at that time to buy a property where most rooms were comparatively small except for the enormous studio.
Last years and death
After his return from California he settled permanently back in his New York studio. In 1936 he travelled to Europe and he may have done so in 1937 and certainly in 1938 when he painted President Motta of Switzerland, apparently for his home town of Bellinzona. In 1937 he painted a portrait of Ellen Dunlap Hopkins the aged founder of the New York School of Applied Design for WomenNew York School of Applied Design for Women
The New York School of Applied Design for Women was an early design school for women in New York City.The school was established in 1892 by philanthropist Ellen Dunlop Hopkins as part of the Arts and Crafts movement...
which he presented to the School in 1938 (now in a private collection, Brooklyn). He painted Pope Pius XII
Pope Pius XII
The Venerable Pope Pius XII , born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli , reigned as Pope, head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City State, from 2 March 1939 until his death in 1958....
in 1936 during his visit to the United States when still Cardinal Pacelli, only finishing the work in 1939, and painted his friend Cardinal Francis Spellman of New York twice in 1940 (St Joseph's Seminary, Yonkers) one version being presented by Manhattan College to Fordham University in 1941 (who appear to have lost the work), and again in 1942; he also painted Archbishop Joseph Rummell of New Orleans (1943).
In 1940, he painted the then famous radio soprano Jessica Dragonette
Jessica Dragonette
Jessica Dragonette was a singer who became popular on American radio and was active in the World War II effort.-Early life and career:...
(Georgian Court College, New Jersey) and several times thereafter, his last portrait in 1946 depicting her in a gold fez. In 1941 he produced a portrait of her sister Rosalinda (always called Nadea) Loftus. He also painted Jessica's colleague Fred Mitchell, and several portraits of her friends and acquaintances.
He died, apparently of cancer, on July 6, 1947 at the Lenox Hill Hospital, New York and is buried in New Calvary Cemetery, Queens, New York, where his gravestone is marked simply, if incorrectly, 'ADOLPH MULLER-URY 1862-1947'. A Requiem Mass was held in St Patrick's Cathedral by Cardinal Spellman before his burial.
After his death his brother Otto Müller travelled to New York to settle his estate. Most of his studio contents, and a good many of his pictures, were sold in two sales at the Plaza Art Galleries, 28 and 29 November 1947 (No. 2809) and 5 December 1947 (No. 2813), including his oil sketch of Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, and the portrait of Lina Cavalieri. The Frick Art Reference Library, New York, has a copy of both catalogues, where the prices for his pictures are marked; three extra lots were included in the second sale.
Exhibitions
Müller-Ury exhibited single pictures and groups of pictures in the following venues (the list is not exhaustive):1884, Schweizerisches Kunstaustellung, Berne.
1886, SCHAUS’S ART GALLERY, 204, Fifth Avenue, (at Madison Square) New York.
1888, Kunstmuseum, Berne.
1888-89, First National Art Exhibition of Pictures by Swiss Artists (TRAVELLING EXHIBITION): Berne, Herisau, Lucerne, Aargau, Lausanne, Basel, Geneva.
1888, INTERNATIONAL FINE ARTS EXHIBITION, MUNICH.
1889, National Academy of Design, New York.
1889, MYERS & HEDIAN, North Charles Street, Baltimore.
1889, EXPOSITION UNIVERSELLE, Paris.
1890, National Academy of Design, New York.
1890, PARIS SALON - Galerie des Artistes-Modernes, rue de la Paix, 5.
1891, M. KNOEDLER & CO., 170, Fifth Avenue, New York.
1892, Second National Art Exhibition of Pictures by Swiss Artists, Berne.
1894, February 1 - 15th, MESSRS. M. KNOEDLER & CO., 170, Fifth Avenue (corner Twenty-second Street), New York
1894, November 1 - 22nd, NATIONAL ACADEMY OF DESIGN, New York, ‘Loan Exhibition of Portraits of Women’
1894, THE CORCORAN GALLERY OF ART, Washington D.C.
1895, M. KNOEDLER & Co., 170, Fifth Avenue (corner Twenty-second Street), New York.
1895, October 31 - December 7, NATIONAL ACADEMY OF DESIGN, New York, ‘Loan Exhibition of Portraits’.
1896, NATIONAL ACADEMY OF DESIGN, New York.
1896, THE CORCORAN GALLERY OF ART, Washington D.C.
1897, March 1 - 15th - DURAND-RUEL GALLERIES, 389, Fifth Avenue, New York. (One Man Show - following an exhibition by Camille Pissarro and preceding one by Auguste Renoir)
1898, SCHAUS’S ART GALLERY, New York.
1898-99, NATIONAL ACADEMY OF DESIGN, New York, ‘Loan Exhibition of Portraits’.
1900, EXPOSITION UNIVERSELLE, Paris, U.S. Pavilion
1901, January 5 - 19th, C.W. KRAUSHAAR ART GALLERIES
Kraushaar Galleries
Kraushaar Galleries is an art gallery in New York City founded in 1885 by Charles W. Kraushaar, who had previously been with the European art gallery, Schaus....
, 260, Fifth Avenue (between 28th & 29th Streets), New York (One Man Show)
1901, PAN-AMERICAN EXPOSITION
Pan-American Exposition
The Pan-American Exposition was a World's Fair held in Buffalo, New York, United States, from May 1 through November 2, 1901. The fair occupied of land on the western edge of what is present day Delaware Park, extending from Delaware Ave. to Elmwood Ave and northward to Great Arrow...
, Buffalo, New York.
1901, M. KNOEDLER & CO., New York.
1901-02, December 1, 1901 - June 1, 1902, SOUTH CAROLINA INTER-STATE AND WEST INDIAN EXPOSITION
South Carolina Inter-State and West Indian Exposition
The South Carolina Inter-State and West Indian Exposition, commonly called the Charleston Exposition or the West Indian Exposition, was a regional trade exposition held in Charleston, South Carolina from December 1, 1901 to June 20, 1902....
, Charleston, South Carolina.
1902, THE CORCORAN GALLERY OF ART, Washington D.C.
1902, NATIONAL ARTS CLUB, New York, 'Portraits and Ideal Heads'.
1903, January 5 - 19th, NOE ART GALLERIES, 368, Fifth Avenue (between 34th & 35th Streets), New York.
1904, November 23 - December 3, M. KNOEDLER & CO., 355, Fifth Avenue (corner Thirty-fourth Street), New York. (One Man Show)
1905, THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO, Portrait Exhibition
1906, December 3 - 15th, M. KNOEDLER & CO., 355, Fifth Avenue, (corner of Thirty-fourth Street), New York. (One Man Show)
1907, THE LOTOS CLUB
Lotos Club
The Lotos Club is a gentleman's club in New York City. Founded in 1870 by a young group of writers and critics, Mark Twain, an early member, called it the "Ace of Clubs"...
, New York.
1907, PARIS SALON.
1908, THE LOTOS CLUB
Lotos Club
The Lotos Club is a gentleman's club in New York City. Founded in 1870 by a young group of writers and critics, Mark Twain, an early member, called it the "Ace of Clubs"...
, New York.
1908, January 13 - 22rd, M. KNOEDLER & CO., 355, Fifth Avenue, (corner of Thirty-fourth Street), New York. (One Man Show)
1908, Monday, January 27 - Friday, January 31, BENDANN’S ART STORE, BALTIMORE.
1908, Tuesday, February 4 - Wednesday, February 19, THE CORCORAN GALLERY OF ART, WASHINGTON D.C. (One Man Show)
1908, February 1908, McCLEES GALLERIES, 1411, Walnut Street, Philadelphia.
1910, March 22 - April 30, KÖNIGLICHE AKADEMIE DER KÜNSTE ZU BERLIN, ‘Ausstellung Amerikanischer Kunst’ (Hors Catalogue).
1910-11, December 21 - January 3, M. KNOEDLER & CO., 355, Fifth Avenue, New York. (One Man Show)
1912, THE RALSTON GALLERIES, 567, Fifth Avenue, New York.
1913, March 31 - April 12, M. KNOEDLER & CO., 556-558, Fifth Avenue, New York. (One Man Show)
1916, THE RALSTON GALLERIES, 567, Fifth Avenue, New York.
1916, THE LOTOS CLUB
Lotos Club
The Lotos Club is a gentleman's club in New York City. Founded in 1870 by a young group of writers and critics, Mark Twain, an early member, called it the "Ace of Clubs"...
, 110, West 57th Street, New York.
1917, HENRY REINHARDT & SON, 565, Fifth Avenue, New York.
1918, January 7 - 12th, HENRY REINHARDT & SON, 565, Fifth Avenue, New York.
1918, February 23 - 26th, THE LOTOS CLUB
Lotos Club
The Lotos Club is a gentleman's club in New York City. Founded in 1870 by a young group of writers and critics, Mark Twain, an early member, called it the "Ace of Clubs"...
, 110, West 57th Street, New York.
1918, M. KNOEDLER & CO., 556, Fifth Avenue, New York.
1918, THE RALSTON GALLERY, 567, Fifth Avenue, New York.
1923, GUMP’S, San Francisco.
1925, April 6 - April 18, DUVEEN GALLERIES
Duveen Brothers
The Duveen Brothers, Joseph Joel Duveen and Henry J. Duveen , were notable art dealers in London, Paris, and New York from the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. They brought to America high quality old master paintings and decorative arts from the great private collections in...
, 720, Fifth Avenue, New York. (One Man Show)
1933, THE COWIE GALLERY, THE BILTMORE HOTEL
Millennium Biltmore Hotel
The Millennium Biltmore Hotel, originally named the Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel of the Biltmore Hotels group, is a luxury hotel located on Pershing Square in Downtown Los Angeles, California. Upon its grand opening in 1923, the Los Angeles Biltmore was the largest hotel west of Chicago, Illinois in...
, Los Angeles.
1937, April 20 - May 4, WILDENSTEIN & CO., INC., 19, East 64th Street, New York. (One Man Show)
1943, May 5 - 19th, GRAND CENTRAL ART GALLERIES
Grand Central Art Galleries
The Grand Central Art Galleries were the exhibition and administrative space of the nonprofit Painters and Sculptors Gallery Association, an artists' cooperative established in 1922 by Walter Leighton Clark together with John Singer Sargent, Edmund Greacen, and others...
, New York, ‘Portraits of Yesterday and Today.’
1944, March 7 - April 4, WILDENSTEIN GALLERY, New York, ‘Stars of Yesterday & Today’, Section: Contemporary Portraits by Contributing Artists.
1947, April 21 - May 3, FRENCH & COMPANY, 210, East 57th Street, New York. (One Man Show).
1950, June 29 - November 19, NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART, Washington D.C., 'Makers of History in Washington 1800 - 1950'.
1968, NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART, Washington D.C., 'This New Man: A Discourse in Portraits'.
2000, NEWPORT ART MUSEUM, Rhode Island, 'Newportraits'.
2000-2003, GEORGE BUSH PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM, College Station, Texas (touring to six other USA venues), 'Portraits of the Presidents: The National Portrait Gallery'.
Collections
The largest public collections of his works are:The Historisches Museum von Uri, Altdorf, Switzerland which has ten pictures, including a large allegorical work painted in 1888 called Alpenrose und Edelweiss, and portraits of his father and his uncle (all three donated by him in 1905 when the Museum was first opened).
The Preservation Society of Newport County, Rhode Island, who were given six of the portraits and two etchings by Muller-Ury in the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming in Laramie in 2007 to add to the six they already possessed five of which are of the Havemeyer family (this collection included Governor Merriam of St Paul as well as his etchings of railroad builder James J. Hill and Senator Chauncey Depew
Chauncey Depew
Chauncey Mitchell Depew was an attorney for Cornelius Vanderbilt's railroad interests, president of the New York Central Railroad System, and a United States Senator from New York from 1899 to 1911.- Biography:...
and was donated to Wyoming by Nicholas M. Turner, husband of the soprano Jessica Dragonette, who at one time owned nearly forty pictures by the artist many bought at his studio sale in 1947). They also acquired from Wyoming the artist's hands modelled by Gertrude Colburn
Gertrude Colburn
Gertrude Colburn was an American dancer and sculptor .She was teacher of dance from 1916 to 1931 at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, and she only took up sculpting after she had an accident...
(died 1968).
The National Portrait Gallery in Washington has nine portraits, including President William McKinley, General Henry Clarke Corbin
Henry Clarke Corbin
Henry Clark Corbin was an officer in the United States Army who served as Adjutant General of the U.S. Army from 1898 to 1904.-Life and career:...
, James J. Hill, the two etchings of James J. Hill and Chauncey Depew, and two oils that the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming in Laramie gave them in 2007 from the Dragonette Collection: a Self-portrait and a portrait of steel titan Charles M. Schwab
Charles M. Schwab
Charles Michael Schwab was an American steel magnate. Under his leadership, Bethlehem Steel became the second largest steel maker in the United States, and one of the most important heavy manufacturers in the world....
. In 2009 they acquired a drawing of Anaconda Copper Mining Millionaire Marcus Daly
Marcus Daly
Marcus Daly redirects here, see also Marcus Daly Marcus Daly was an Irish-born American businessman known as one of the three "Copper Kings" of Butte, Montana, United States.- Early life:...
.
The New York State Museum at Albany contains six portraits, four of which were in the former New York Chamber of Commerce: Theodore Havemeyer, James Constable, William 'Boyce' Thompson, and Benjamin Altman.
Much of his work remains in private collections or with the descendents of his sitters, and many of the portraits of his most famous sitters are apparently lost. However, his recently rediscovered 1923 portrait of his great friend Sir Joseph Duveen, the art dealer, has been recently widely reproduced, notably on the cover of the 2004 biography of Duveen by Meryle Secrest; it was subsequently sold at TEFAF Maastricht in 2006 for $95,000.
Related artist
Muller-Ury's third cousin was the American Impressionist artist Hildegarde Muller-Uri (1894–1990) who had been born in Greenwich Village but became a resident of San Augustine, Florida, after her parents, who were restaurateurs, moved there and opened the Hotel Marion. She became a member of the San Augustine art colony, where she taught art, and painted portraits and landscapes in an impressionist style. Her work also includes stained glass, etchings, illustrations, woodblock prints and linoleum cuts of city scenes and historic buildings in FloridaFlorida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
. She published a book with twenty-two woodcuts called St. Augustine in Woodcuts.