Adolfo Muller-Ury

Adolfo Felice Muller-Ury (Swiss-American, 1862–1947)

Munich Royal Academy, National Museum of American Art.

A portrait of a young man with blue-green eyes wearing an open-neck shirt and gazing serenely towards the viewer.

Presented in a swept wood frame.

Born in the Canton of Ticino, Switzerland to an aristocratic family, Müller-Ury first studied under sculptor Vincenzo Vela in Airolo before attending the Munich Royal Academy to study with Gyula von Benczur and Karl Von Piloty. Muller-Ury took a study trip to Italy between 1882–1884, where he copied the masters in the Vatican in addition to painting portraits of Cardinal Hergenrother and Cardinal Hohenlohe. Before immigrating to America in 1885, Muller-Ury studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris.

Most of his career was spent in New York where he painted the local elite, such as J. P. Morgan, James J. Hill, Senator Chauncey M. Depew and President McKinley. In 1907, he painted Pope Pius X who gave him a gold medal and in 1909 Muller-Ury traveled to Potsdam to paint Kaiser Wilhelm II; his portraits of both Mrs. Woodrow Wilson and President Wilson were done in 1916 and 1917. In 1920, Muller-Ury painted Pope Benedict XV; in 1923 and 1930, he painted Pope Pius XI, who made him first a Knight of St. Gregory the Great in 1923 and later a Papal Count.

In 1922, Muller-Ury came to California with Sir Joseph Duveen to deliver to Henry Huntington Gainsborough's Blue Boy. The following year, he made trips to San Francisco where he painted Archbishop Edward Hanna. Opting to remain in California, he built a studio in San Marino which still remains at 3400 Monterey Road. Before returning to New York in 1933, in addition to painting the local elite, Muller-Ury spent much time painting impressionist still lifes of roses which he grew in his garden.

Muller-Ury exhibited widely and with success, including at Durand-Ruel, Knoedler Gallery, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Duveen Brothers, Wildensteins and French & Co., the Paris Salon (1889, 1902), Gump's at San Francisco (1923), USC (1933) and more. His works can be found in the permanent collections of the Huntington Hospital in Pasadena, California; the New York Historical Society; University of Wyoming; North American College in Rome; and the National Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C. Muller-Ury was a member of the Lotus Club, the National Arts Club, Salmagundi Club and the National Association of Portrait Painters.

Signed lower left recto

Who Was Who in American Art 1564-1975: 400 Years of Artists in America, Peter Hastings Falk, Sound View Press 1999, Vol. 2, p. 2362.

Artists in California 1786-1940, Third Edition, Edan Milton Hughes: Crocker Art Museum, Sheridan Books 2002, Vol. 2, p. 794-795.

American Art Annual 1933; E. Benezit, Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs, et Graveurs, Jacques Busse, 1999 Nouvelle Édition, Gründ 1911, Vol. 9, p. 958.

Vollmer Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler des 20. Jarhhunderts, Hans Vollmer, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag 1992, Vol. 3, p. 442.

Interview with the artist or his/her family; NY Times, 7-8-1947 (obituary).

'Re-introducing Adolfo Muller-Ury', The British Art Journal, Volume IV, No. 2, Summer 2003.