Alfredo Müller

Who was Alfredo Müller?

Alfredo Müller was a Franco-Italian painter and printmaker. As a painter from Livorno, he belonged to the group of the Postmacchiaioli, together with Mario Puccini, Oscar Ghiglia, Plinio Nomellini, Ulvi Liegi, Giovanni Bartolena, and others, and as a French engraver, he was close to Francis Jourdain, Manuel Robbe, Richard Ranft, Eugène Delâtre, Théophile Steinlen.

Müller was born in a wealthy Swiss family involved in the international cotton and coffee trades. At the age of 15, he began studying art in Florence with the masters Giuseppe Ciaranfi and Michele Gordigiani of the Academy of Fine Arts. There he became friends for life with Edoardo Gordigiani, the son of Michele, and Egisto Fabbri, a Tuscan-American.

In 1886, as a young painter, he participated in the First Exhibition of Fine Arts of Livorno, together with established painters such as Giovanni Fattori and Silvestro Lega.

In 1889, he exhibited two of his paintings at the Universal Exhibition in Paris, where he discovered Impressionism. This moment represented a turning point in the career of the young painter, as he was always concerned with colors and vibrations of light.