Robert O. Muller, Renowned Art Dealer And Collector, Dies At 91

Robert O. Muller, 91, of Newtown, internationally renowned art dealer and collector of Japanese Meiji art, died April 10.

He had been in failing health the last few months due to the end stages of Parkinson’s disease.

Over the course of his lifetime, Mr Muller amassed an unrivalled collection of Japanese woodblock prints from the late 19th through the 20th Century, frequently purchasing works directly from the artist and even commissioning now well-known prints, thereby greatly influencing the direction of postwar production in Japan. Selections from his collection have been exhibited in museums in Paris, Lausanne, Amsterdam, the Hague, and Leiden.

In this country, highlights from his comprehensive collection have been the cornerstone of exhibitions at numerous museums including those at Yale University, Cornell University, The Portland Art Museum, and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, among others. Numerous scholarly publications and exhibition catalogs from Europe, the United States, and Japan have focused on this remarkably complete collection; the two most comprehensive are The New Wave: Twentieth Century Japanese Prints from the Robert O. Muller Collection (1993), and in Japanese, Ukiyo-e Masterpieces in Western Collections: The Muller Collection (1990).

Born in Pelham, N.Y., on October 5, 1911, he graduated from The Gunnery in 1929, and Harvard University in 1934 with a bachelor’s degree in history. His passion for Japanese prints of the Meiji, Taisho, and early Showa eras started during the Depression, and he often spent his entire monthly allowance on a single print.

On his honeymoon in Japan in 1940, he arranged the trip around meetings with the artists whose work he was already collecting, making contact and lifelong friends with celebrated artists, such as Hasui Kawase and Shinsul Ito, as well as many of the major art publishers. Returning to America just before the start of World War II, he opened the Robert Lee Gallery in New York City and then later acquired the Merwin’s Art Shop adjacent to the Yale campus in New Haven.

“Bob Muller was an American original. He had an eye for the absolute highest quality and he was uncompromising. Of its kind, his collection is unparalleled and everywhere reflects his sensibility. I learned much about the art of ‘seeing’ from Bob, and I deeply regret his passing,” said James T. Ulak, chief curator of the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, D.C.

He is survived by his wife, Ingeborg; his brothers, Erhart of Harvard, Mass., and John of Stratham, N.H.; sister, Eva Smith of Hanover, N.H.; five children, Christina Cowles of South Salem, N.Y., Diana Gray of Wilton, Frederick Ralto of Trinidad, Calif., Gertrude Moore of Orinda, Calif., and Robert Muller of Guilford; 12 grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren.

There will be a memorial service in Newtown in late spring.

The Newtown Bee        April 18, 2003