Paper

1992.20

William A. McGill

Gift

Gift of William A. McGill

1948

16 x 20

12-13/16 in

9-1/2 in

Pao Student Windows (2023)

Cultural/Historical Context

"Hans Alexander Mueller studied at the Leipziger Akademie für Graphische Kunste und Buchgewerbe (Academy for Graphic and Book Arts, Leipzig, Germany). After WWI he instructed at the Academy but by 1937 emigrated to the U.S. permanently. The artist gathered renown for his book illustrations, most famously Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra’s El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha (“Don Quixote,” first published 1605). While at Leipzig Academy, Mueller instructed artists later regarded as among the 20th century’s finest. Lynd Kendall Ward, a Chicago-based artist, finished his early education studying wood-engraving under Mueller. Ward (1905-1985) would introduce the “wordless novel” to the US. His visual narratives, communicating story solely through imagery, include God’s Man: A Novel in Woodcuts, Madman’s Drum, Wild Pilgrimage, and Vertigo. Mueller also educated German printer Johannes Lebek. Lebek went on to found (along with Frans Masereel) the Xylon International Society of Wood Engravers (1969). Stanford University Libraries held the exhibition “Johannes Lebek: The Artist as a Witness of His Time,” (2005) featuring illustrated book works by his contemporaries including Fritz Eichenberg, Käthe Kollwitz, Masereel, and Mueller himself. 46 color wood-engraved illustrations by Mueller enhance the 1941 New York/Random House edition of “Don Quixote.” Mueller’s earlier book, Woodcuts and Wood Engravings: How I Make Them (Pynson Printers, NY 1939), includes a “Don Quixote” illustration then still under preparation. It demonstrated Mueller’s chiaroscuro woodcut approach – combining a mid-tone (gray/color) and black plate (for shadows/details) against white paper, producing defined, modeled images. The Cleveland Print Club commissioned Mueller (1950) to illustrate another scene from “Don Quixote.” This bore a chiaroscuro woodcut printed from two blocks (later acquired by Purdue). Mueller’s image depicts the man of La Mancha’s imagination, perceiving an inn as a “castle with four turrets, the pinnacles of which were of glittering silver” (Chpt. 2)."