
Jelena James
Senior Specialist, Head of Sale



US$20,000 - US$40,000

Senior Specialist, Head of Sale



Cataloguer

Cataloguer
Provenance
A private California collection.
N.B.
One of Poland's first professional Jewish women painters, Maria Melania Mutermilch, was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1876. She began her artistic career early on, attending the School of Drawing and Painting for Women in Warsaw before moving to Paris in 1901 at the age of 25. In Paris, Muter found herself part of a community of international artists and enrolled in classes at the Académie Colarossi and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. It was not to long after in 1902 Muter began exhibiting her work at the Paris Salon. Though in Paris, Muter was still very active in the Polish art community and made frequent trips with her family to Warsaw.
The present landscape is a depiction of Rue des Teinturiers in Avignon, France, a popular spot in the French countryside for many artists of the time. Muter fled to the town at the start of World War II where she began teaching drawing and art history at the College Ste. Marie for girls. As the present work shows, her output from this time focuses on the landscape and does not hint at the looming despair of war. Regarding her opinion of the war, Muter is quoted "I paint everything, I find all subjects interesting...everything except paintings of battle, the war fills me with repulsion." - (Lazowski, 2001, pg. 25).
We would like to kindly thank Urszula Lazowski for confirming the authenticity of this painting.