Hildegarde Muller-Uri, On Airles St. oil on canvas board, 26 by 30 inches. Signed lower right, titled verso.
Hildegarde Muller-Uri was born in Greenwich Village in New York City and grew up in St. Augustine. Her father was Henry Flagler’s chef at the Ponce de Leon Hotel. In 1925 Muller helped organize St. Augustine’s first art community, the Galleon Club. At the Tampa Art Institute’s 7th annual all-Florida exhibit, the Tampa Times (November 15, 1927) noted her work, “Hildegarde Muller of St. Augustine, has sent one of the best pictures of the collection—a fantastic conception of a Florida autumn, perhaps, yet singularly appealing for its beauty and grace and brilliant coloring.” She and Elsa Anschutz Zieg opened a studio, At the Sign of the Palette, on St. George Street. In March 1928, Hildegarde Muller represented the Galleon Art Club at the 1st Annual Convention and Exhibition of the Florida Federation of Art, held in Gainesville. Muller-Uri was known for her wood block prints, linoleum cuts and etchings. In 1934 she had a studio at the Hotel Marion on Bay Street. In 1937 she succeeded Harold Hilton of Jacksonville as president of the Florida Federation of Art. The St. Augustine Record, February 12, 1941 reviewed Muller-Uri’s painting, Old Llambias House, “Hildegarde Muller-Uri brings us back to the scenes of our own St. Augustine; and how beautifully she does it, with her grasp of color and the fine handling of her subject. Blue skies are crossed by fronds of palms and in the stones of this balconied old house you feel that there are stories worth the telling, stories of other days long gone, but long remembered….” Miller-Uri died in St. Augustine in 1990 at the age of 96.
Hildegarde Mueller-Uri, oil on canvas board, 12 by 16 inches.
Born: 1894, New York City. Died: 1990, St. Augustine, Florida. Education: Art Students League, NYC; with Heinrich Pfeiffer; portraiture with Wayman Adams; with Frank Vincent -DuMond in Vermont; Hugh Breckenridge in Gloucester. Membership: Galleon Club; St. Augustine Arts Club; Florida Federation of Art, chairman finance committee, 1927, treasurer, 1936, vice-president, 1937, president, 1938; Society of The Four Arts. Exhibits: Tampa Art Institute, 5th Annual, Tampa City Hall, March 1926, as Hildegarde Muller, Wind Blown Trees, The Hillside Cottage, Lewis Point-St. Augustine; Tampa Art Institute, 7th annual all-Florida exhibit, municipal auditorium, November 1927; Florida Federation of Art, annual circuit, 1932, as Hildegarde Muller; Florida Federation of Art, 7th Annual, best etching, Spanish Scene; Woman’s Club of Charlotte, North Carolina, May 1933, scenes of North Carolina and St. Augustine; St. Augustine Arts Club, Woman’s Exchange, Burt House, January 1934; Palm Beach Art Center, 2nd Annual, February 1934, Sunny Doorway; St. Augustine Arts Club, Art Mart, Old Slave Market Plaza, February 1934; Florida State Fair, Tampa, November 1935, The Old Mountaineer; Florida Federation of Art, 9th Annual Exhibit, Tampa, November 1935, honorable mention, professional, pastel, Walter Thompson; SAAC, February 1937; Florida Federation of Art Annual, St Petersburg Federal Gallery, February 1937, A Spanish Vista; Society of the Four Arts 2nd Annual, April 1937, The Old Mountaineer; Florida Federation of Art, 11th Annual Exhibition, St. Augustine, December 2-5, 1937, San Martino di Castrozzo-Dolomiti, The Old Covered Bridge; SAAC, January-March 1938; Society of The Four Arts, Professional Members Exhibit, January 1938; Florida Federation of Art 12th Annual, Society of Four Arts, Palm Beach, December 1938, Dune Country and Old St. Augustine; Society of The Four Arts, December 30, 1938; SAAC, January-March 1939; Florida Federation of Art, Annual Exhibit, Bradenton, December 1940, Winter Thaw, Old Spanish Quarter; SAAC, Alcazar Building, January 1941, Dahlias; Florida Federation of Art, 14th Annual Circuit, December 1941, Tampa, portrait Suzanna; Florida Federation of Art, 15th Annual Exhibition, 1942, best portrait; Florida Federation of Art, Annual Circuit, Jacksonville, 1944, oil, The Edge of The Swamp; SAAC, February 1945, oils, Robert Cartwright, Along the St. Johns River; SAAC, February 1946, oils, Llambias House, Bleak House; SAAC, March 1946, Portrait of Louis Granville; SAAC, February 1947, Mexican Senorita; SAAC, March 1947, Old Mineville Road; SAAC, January 1948, Mary Had A Little Lamb, Tom Manning; SAAC, February 1948, portrait, Henry Muller; St. Augustine Art Association, the Plaza, January 1950, Harold Wayne Award, Motif Number One; Florida International Art Exhibition, Florida Southern College, Lakeland, March 1952, oil, Peanut Hay; SAAA, January 1954, 1st Faw Award, oil, Sentinels of the Blue Ridge; Daytona Beach Art League Annual, February 1955, judge; SAAA, March 1955, Milton Bacon 1st Award, oil, Old Street-St. Augustine; SAAA, January 1956, 1st prize, oil. Directory: Listed in Polk’s St. Augustine City Directory (as Hildegarde Muller)in 1934, 1937 and 1940 as an artist with a studio at 128 Bay.
