NYAB Event - Jan Müller “From Mosaic into Man”

Jan Müller “From Mosaic into Man”

Lori Bookstein Fine Art

This event has ended.

This exhibition are comprised of nearly twenty paintings and will attempt to illustrate Jan Müller’s artistic trajectory away from abstraction towards figuration. Beginning in the late 40s under the tutelage of Hans Hofmann, Müller maintained primarily formal concerns. His early mosaic paintings from this period emphasized a strong focus on color and geometric from. As his career progressed, and his preoccupation shifted, Müller was confronted by the limitations of formalism in conveying the human condition. The mosaics began to utilize color and form in a new way, whereby individual tiles coalesced to articulate the likeness of the human figure. Eventually, the artist would focus his attention on the human figure and more largely human consciousness through series of complex allegorical paintings, thus leaving behind pure-abstraction entirely.

The variety of materials that Müller painted on reinforces the fury with which he explored the psychology of man through painting. Ranging from canvas to burlap to wooden shingles, the support in each of these paintings adds distinct texture and depth to the figures that rise through the mosaics. The total effect is a heightening of the tandem psychological-complexity and formal-simplicity of these works. Indeed, Meyer Schapiro has so eloquently described the artist’s transition as one “from abstract mosaics to a mosaic of nature and figures with simplicity and breadth.”