Mosaic and Brass Coffee or Side Table by Berthold Müller, 1960s

Beautiful, stylish and elegant Mosaic 1960's coffee table made by the sculptor Berthold Müller. Designed with the highest craftsmanship. A stunning mosaic pattern with the sculpture of a horse. Completed with solid brass surroundings and legs with original patina. In very good condition. Born in Oerlinghausen near Bielefeld in 1893, [ Berthold Müller, he himself added Oerlinghausen to his name later, began his studies of sculpture under Hans Perathoner at the Bielefeld College of Arts and Crafts in 1910 while still a schoolboy. Completing his grammar school education in the classical humanities in Bielefeld in 1912, he moved to Berlin in 1914 and studied at the Charlottenburg School of Applied Arts. During the First World War he was conscripted for service with cavalry regiments in Russia, Galicia and France. In 1919 he was able to continue his interrupted studies in Berlin under Hans Perathoner and Willy Jäckel. In 1922, together with his wife, Jenny Wiegmann, he converted to Catholicism at the Abbey of Maria Laach. During the 1920s he devoted himself to religious art. In 1933 he organized, and took part in, the Catholic section of the Exhibition of Ecclesiastical Art during the World’s Fair in Chicago. From then on he spent the summer months mainly in Kressbronn on Lake Constance. In 1936 he founded a mosaic workshop in Berlin. His studio, mosaic workshop and apartment in Berlin were destroyed in an air raid in 1944. After 1945 Berthold Müller-Oerlinghausen made important contributions to a revival of the cultural life of the communities on Lake Constance: the rebuilding of his mosaic workshop in Kressbronn in 1946, exhibitions in the Municipal Museum of Lindau, the founding in 1947 of the “Upper Swabian Secession” (renamed “Secession of Upper Swabia/Lake Constance” in 1950), the founding of the “Artists’ Society of the Town and District of Lindau” (renamed “Lindau Art Patrons’ Society” in 1956), solo exhibitions at the Wessenberg Haus in Constance and elsewhere, a retrospective exhibition at the Municipal Museum of Lindau in 1963 marking his 70th birthday. A monograph of the work of Berthold Müller-Oerlinghausen, written by Ulrich Gertz, was published in 1974. Berthold Müller-Oerlinghausen died in Kressbronn in 1979, too soon to receive the planned honorary title of professor from the State of Baden-Württemberg.