Bathers

ca. 1920

Otto Mueller German, 1874-1930

On View

Modern, Level 2, North Wing

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Catalogue Raisonné

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About the Artwork

In Bathers, two nude women tower over a hilly landscape. One of them stands in shallow waters with a slight turn to her left, while the other crouches on the grassy ground, exposing her body in profile. Otto Mueller sketched them summarily, the silhouettes of their bodies reinforced with thick gray and bluish outlines against the golden hue of their sun-bathed skin. Inspired early on by Pompeian wall paintings and Egyptian murals, which he had encountered in the Egyptian Museum in Berlin, Mueller integrated the structure of the coarse canvas into the surface of this composition to approximate an effect of a mural painting. The subject of bathers was one to which he returned numerous times in paint, drawing, and print.

Mueller joined the expressionist collective Die Brücke (The Bridge) in 1910, several years after its 1905 founding. After the dissolution of Die Brücke in 1913, Mueller continued his contacts with former members, especially Erich Heckel, with whom he struck up a deep friendship. In the early 1920s, Mueller and Heckel spent time visiting each other at locations on the Baltic Sea, a possible setting of this work.

Title Bathers

Artwork Date ca. 1920

Artist Otto Mueller

Life Dates 1874-1930

Nationality Please note: Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events. Some definitions include: Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation. German

Culture Please note: Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group. ----------

Medium Oil on canvas

Dimensions Unframed: 37 1/4 × 31 inches (94.6 × 78.7 cm) Framed: 42 1/4 × 35 7/8 × 1 15/16 inches (107.3 × 91.1 × 4.9 cm)

Classification Paintings

Department European Modern Art to 1970

Credit City of Detroit Purchase

Accession Number This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection. Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings. For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups. 21.210

Markings

Signed Signed, lower left: O.M.

Inscriptions Inscribed, on stretcher: ottomueller

Provenance

1921–present, purchased by the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)

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Exhibition History

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The exhibition history of a number of objects in our collection only begins after their acquisition by the museum, and may reflect an incomplete record.

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Published References

Catalogue of Paintings in the Permanent Collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts of the City Detroit. Detroit, 1930, no. 150.

Richardson, Edgar P., ed. The Detroit Institute of Arts: Catalogue of Paintings. Detroit, 1944, p. 93, no. 150.

German Expressionism in Art, 1905–1935. Exh. cat., University of Minnesota: University Gallery. Minneapolis, 1950, no. 93.

“Mueller, Otto.” Encyclopedia of Painting: Painters and Painting of the World from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day, ed. Bernard S. Myers. New York, 1955, p. 353 (ill.).

Sharp, Ellen. "Introduction." Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts 45, no. 3-4 (1966): p. 48.

Uhr, Horst. Masterpieces of German Expressionism at the Detroit Institute of Arts. New York, 1982, p. 164 (ill.).

Beal, Graham W.J. and Debra N. Mancoff. Treasures of the DIA. Detroit, 2007, p. 393, no. 317 (ill.).

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