Albin Müller, kitchen set, around 1910 for Simon Peter Gerz I, Höhr (Westerwald)

Albin Müller (geb. im Erzgebirge 1871, gest. 1941 in Darmstadt)  – written as one word Albinmüller, he called himself from 1917 on – is one of the prominent designers of arts and crafts movement around 1900. He was a member of the generation of the pioneers of product design, like Henry van de Velde, Peter Behrens and Richard Riemerschmid. As artists, as well as architect of superior versatility he created designs mainly for furniture, metalwork, serpentinestone, glass, and ceramics.
The Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of Hesse appointed Müller to the Darmstadt Artists’ Colony in 1906. After the death of Josef Olbrich in 1908, he was a leading architect of the artists’ colony.

Müller was particularly successful in the area earthenware. His designs for different factories of the Westerwälder Steinzeugindustrie, threatened of their existence, apparently proved to be a stroke of luck. His will require focused mainly on the years around 1910. The also paid Simon Peter Gerz was one of the leading companies, for whom Müller designed the here offered reservoirs. In addition to cans and punchbowls, it also provoked him to design other items for the kitchen. Such pieces are to be found now only very rarely, but this in fact astonishingly well-preserved vessels could be rediscovered in a bakery in Darmstadt.

In: Die Kunst 24 (1910/11), p.183 with im.; Dekorative Kunst vol.14, 1910/11, im.p. 183; Erlebach/Schimanski 1987, p.47, cat.no. 32. Museum Künstlerkolonie Darmstadt, Bestandskat. Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt 1990, im. p.167.