Painting by Meli Muter "Avignon", oil / plywood, dim. 47x54 cm, signed lower left MUTER, the image includes the Millon & Associes auction house auction catalog and the purchase invoice from 2012.
Mela Muter, actually Maria Melania Mutermilch nee Klingsland (Warsaw 1876 - Paris 1967) - one of the most interesting artists of the so-called École de Paris; Despite studying with Miłosz Kotarbiński in Warsaw and at the Académie de la Grande Chaumiére and Académie Colarossi in Paris, she considered herself self-taught, claiming that contacts with outstanding artists and their art were the real school of painting for her. A friend of many artists and personalities (including R. Rolland, A. Zweig. R.M. Rilke, A. France. G. Clemenceau), she lived in Paris in 1901, obtaining French citizenship in 1927. She traveled to Spain and Switzerland several times, and always kept in touch with Poland, acting for the benefit of the country and taking part in its artistic life. Valued primarily as a portraitist, she also painted landscapes and still lifes. She devoted many paintings to the topics of motherhood, suffering and old age. In the early period, she painted pictures in the convention of realistic and dark color tones (Portrait of L. Staff, Game of chess). Later, in the "French" period, she brightened the palette, used a clear contour and stylization of forms, aimed at geometrization. In recent years, large groups of the artist's works have been presented at several exhibitions at the National Museum in Warsaw ("Polish Artists", "Collection of Ewa and Wojciech Fibak", and above all at a large exhibition of the artist's paintings from the collections of Lina and Bolesław Nawrocki).
