Maria Melania Mutermilch (Mela Muter)

Maria Mela Kingsland was born in Warsaw as was one of four children in a wealthy family of art enthusiasts, and her father was instantly her greatest patron. Warsaw was then occupied by Russia, and the artist later reflected that in youth she had been influenced by Russian literature, and particularly that of Dostoevsky.

In 1899 she married art critic Michal Mutermilch, and the following year they had a son, their only child. Taking the name Mela Mutermilch, she enrolled in Warsaw's School of Drawing and Painting for Women for a brief time before moving to Paris. There she was immediately thrust into various intellectual circles, and although she maintained ties to Poland as a member of the Sociéte des Artistes Polonais à Paris, she became increasingly interested in the Post-impressionist styles of Western European painting. She was particularly inspired by the innovations of the Pont-Aven school, including those of its leader Paul Gauguin, whose broad contour lines she reinvented in her own works. She was also inspired by the painterly technique of Vincent Van Gogh, and soon her works featured a distinct blend of geometric patterning and thick impasto.

Muter's mature canvases are reminiscent of certain Russian avant-garde artists, including Natalia Goncharova. Beyond sheer talent, Muter distinguished herself in both subject and color scheme--she depicted mostly portraits and seascapes, and she focused her palette with earthy tones of brown, green and gray.

Ever since her first vacation to Brittany in 1901, Muter was fascinated by Breton life and tradition. Though she shared this fascination with many artists in turn-of-the-century France, including members of the Pont-Aven school, it seems Muter's attraction was both professional and personal. Despite her Jewish upbringing, she converted to Catholicism in 1923, and she became a French citizen in 1927.

By 1907, as her relationship with her husband deteriorated, the artist began to sign her works with "Muter" rather than "Muthermilch," and from then on her oeuvre was constantly in flux. In her earlier years, she painted devastating portraits of the sorrowful and destitute; later, abandoning her tragic manner, she painted vibrant portraits and lighter landscapes of the French and Spanish coast. It seems she turned to lighter landscapes when overwhelmed by the difficulties of her own life, since the chronology of her landscapes coincides with the calamities she suffered. She was particularly afflicted by her firsthand encounters with war, the death of her father, the probable suicide of her son, her drawn out divorce from her husband, and the deaths of several close friends, including a man whom she intended to marry. Thus Muter had much grief in her own life, and it seems her many beautiful landscapes are a poignant testament to that grief.

The present lots were painted in the 1920s, when Mela Muter "continued to paint boat scenes and landscapes in the warm tonalities of southern France, Postimpressionist in style, and city scenes showing the hard-edged lines of the Paris streets" (Urszula Lazowski in Woman's Art Journal, Vol. 22, No. 1, Spring-Summer 2001,  p. 25).

Four of these works were gifted by Muter to Russian-American artist Joseph Raskin by 1940, just before France was invaded by German military forces. Sensing imminent danger, she asked that he send the paintings to America, where they might survive the war. Raskin's brother received them at that time, and they have remained in the family's collection ever since.

Muter survived both World Wars in France, but--as time passed and funds dwindled--she slowly retreated from Parisian society. Worsening eyesight plagued her late career, and she died alone after ten years in seclusion.

Muter traveled to St. Tropez in July 1921 and continued to paint similar works for the remainder of that year and into the next. She was impressed by the town and felt elated while painting there, for she felt that, like in Brittany, the residents were faithful to their cultural traditions. The port was enticing and fresh, and she experienced the "local flair" as a welcome diversion from the rapid industrialization of Paris. Muter painted the scene with bright, expressive colors, positioning the boats and their masts in a very active arrangement, so that the diagonals guide the viewer's eye through the composition.