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PROPERTY FROM A SIGNIFICANT PRIVATE COLLECTION OF POLISH ART
Lot 2AR
MELA MUTER(1876-1967)Le sculpteur François Pompon dans son atelier
Amended
16 October 2025, 16:00 BST
London, New Bond Street£70,000 - £100,000
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MELA MUTER (1876-1967)
Le sculpteur François Pompon dans son atelier
oil on canvas
81 x 64.8cm (31 7/8 x 25 1/2in).
Painted circa 1925
oil on canvas
81 x 64.8cm (31 7/8 x 25 1/2in).
Painted circa 1925
Footnotes
The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by Urszula Lazowski.
Provenance
Gérald Schurr Collection, Paris.
Leicester Galleries (Peter Nahum), London.
Private collection, UK.
Private collection, UK (by descent from the above).
Exhibited
Neuilly-sur-Seine, Centre Culturel Arturo Lopez, Portraits et autoportraits de la Collection Gérald Schurr, 16 April - 5 May 1986, no. 58.
Literature
G. Schurr, Les petits maîtres de la peinture de valeur de demain, Vol. V, Paris, 1981 (illustrated p. 28).
Mela Muter, born Maria Melania Mutermilch, infused both her life and her art with the same emotional depth and intensity that became the hallmark of her celebrated portraits. A Polish-Jewish artist who forged her path in the vibrant and often tumultuous world of early 20th-century Paris, Muter defied both geographic and societal boundaries to become a respected figure in the international art scene. Her work, deeply personal yet universally resonant, bridges the intimate with the expressive, the national with the cosmopolitan. As a prominent member of the École de Paris, Muter brought a distinctively Slavic sensibility to her art - one that, in her own words, was only fully revealed to her through the lens of her adopted home in France. Having left Warsaw in 1901, Muter's artistic journey was shaped as much by her restless travels and profound personal losses, including the premature deaths of both her second husband and son, as by her formal training at avant-garde academies in Paris. Her paintings reflect the complex tapestry of her life: rooted in Symbolism, evolving through Synthetism, and marked by an expressive, humanistic style that echoed the sensibilities of Cézanne, Van Gogh, and the Fauves, without ever losing her distinct voice. Whether portraying fellow artists, political thinkers, or anonymous figures encountered during wartime exile, Muter brought a rare psychological depth to her portraits, offering, as critics have noted, an almost uncomfortable truthfulness in the way she captured the human condition.
Le sculpteur François Pompon dans son atelier is a painting that masterfully blends visual realism and psychological depth. Painted from a viewpoint just inside the threshold of the sculptor's studio, the composition evokes the sense of having quietly entered the space, catching the artist absorbed in his work. Pompon sits at a modest table, his posture hunched in concentration, his hands obscured by a tall stool placed between him and the viewer. Atop the stool rests a pristine white sculpture of a cockerel (Coq, 1914), one of Pompon's signature animal forms. Rendered with remarkable fidelity, it mirrors the polished, essentialist aesthetic for which he became known - to show the animal in its truest and most undeniable essence. A hammer lies casually beside the sculpture, implying that the piece is still in progress, yet the artist's focus has shifted, suggesting a moment of contemplation or perhaps a natural pause in the rhythm of his day.
The painting is saturated with tactile details that give it a documentary quality, yet Muter's loose, confident brushwork imbues the scene with a painterly vitality. The use of an earthy palette, with ochres, browns, deep reds and soft whites, captures the warm, lived-in atmosphere of the atelier. In this painting, as in several of Muter's works, the use of bold black contours defines forms with clarity and emotional intensity – a technique likely inspired by the noted polish painter Władysław Ślewiński. Lining the wall behind Pompon are semi-abstracted sculptures, their smooth, rounded forms hinting at animal figures. Though their features are indistinct, they echo the recurring themes in Pompon's career: the distillation of the animal form into something rhythmically pure and timeless. These forms are not incidental. They represent decades of observation and refinement, whether from the farmyards of his native Normandy or from exotic creatures studied at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, where he famously set up a portable studio to model animals from life.
To the right, two figurative sculptures subtly broaden the range of Pompon's artistic practice. A large figure of a girl with a basket (Cosette, 1888) and a Neoclassical bust serve as reminders that Pompon had mastered the human form before gaining recognition for his animal sculptures. Trained under the animalier Pierre Louis Rouillard and having worked in the studio of Auguste Rodin, who once predicted Pompon would become 'a great artist', Pompon's grounding in traditional sculpture was robust (P. Kjellberg, Les bronzes du XIXe siècle, Paris, 2005, p. 583). Yet, it was only after 1905 that he devoted himself exclusively to animals, reducing their forms, smoothing away detail, and searching for 'the essential', as he self-described his method.
The present work was formerly part of the collection of Gérald Schurr, a French art critic and passionate collector with a unique focus on portraits of painters and writers, whether self-portraits or depictions by fellow artists such as Maurice Vlaminck, Pablo Picasso, and Paul Cézanne. François Pompon is thereby placed within this pantheon, one that truly celebrates his talent and enduring art historical significance. Schurr's collection grew to around 700 works, reflecting his unwavering dedication and profound fascination with the faces, emotions, and enigmatic presence of each artist. He firmly believed that these portraits served as a bridge between the artist and their work, revealing deeper truths about their identity. Schurr explores this idea in Portraits et Autoportraits, a text published to accompany an exhibition of the same name held at in Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1986, within which the present work formed a critical touchstone of his artistic philosophy. Alongside works such as Louis Valtat's portrait of Pierre-Auguste Renoir (circa 1910), Maximilien Luce's portrait of Georges Seurat (1888), and Jean Cocteau's portrait of Pablo Picasso (1917), the present work shone in remarkable company, contributing to a vital dialogue between artists.
In Le sculpteur François Pompon dans son atelier, Mela Muter brings the hallmarks of her mature style to bear: psychological insight, expressive brushwork, and a profound sensitivity to her subject's inner world. Just as she approached her portraits of political thinkers and anonymous exiles with unflinching emotional honesty, here she captures the quiet dignity of an artist whose life was devoted to form, restraint, and essence. This painting is not merely a depiction of a studio - it is a meditation on artistic integrity and solitude, rendered by an artist who herself navigated the complexities of identity, displacement, and belonging. The result is a rare double portrait: of the sculptor and of the very nature of artistic creation. This level of authenticity reveals not only Muter's keen sensitivity as an observer, but also her embeddedness in the intellectual and artistic circles of the École de Paris. She was an artist who, despite her outsider status, saw and understood her subjects with remarkable clarity. In capturing Pompon within the sanctum of his creative life, Muter affirms her enduring ability to translate the invisible – concentration, humility, and genius – into powerful visual form.
Saleroom notices
Please note that this work has been requested for the landmark François Pompon retrospective at the Château de Frontenay in the summer of 2026, currently being prepared by Côme Remy and Liliane Colas from the Association François Pompon, authors of the François Pompon catalogue raisonné. This work will be reproduced in the exhibition catalogue and would be featured alongside Pompon's seminal works in the exhibition, including Coq (1914), which appears in the foreground of this portrait. Please refer to the department on impressionists@bonhams.com for further information.
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