Carl Otto Müller

German painter Carl Otto Müller received an Honorable Mention for his work Der Eishockey-Tormann (The Hockey Goalie) in the Art Competitions in the category Paintings at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. He was often called the “Cézanne of the Altmühltal”, and is considered the greatest local painter and painted in the 20th century in Altmühltal, although he never cared about the style of Paul Cezanne.

In the 1930s Müller ran into trouble with the Nazi ideas of art, but was permitted to continue to exhibit, although he was expelled in 1943 when he was considered degenerate. After World War II, he continued to paint, but was also a producer, county politician and regionally, nationally and internationally active as a judge and official art and exhibition organizer. In 1953 he became president of the New München Artists’ Association and conducted several annual exhibitions of the “Haus der Kunst”.

In Eichstätt a gallery depicting his live and works was founded after his 1977 death. In the rooms of the District Office of Eichstätt, the former prince-bishop’s residence, a variety of paintings and drawings from Müller’s work is exhibited, including chalk drawings, oil paintings, lithographs and charcoals. His work included the genres portraits, nudes, landscapes and still lifes. Many of his landscape paintings show various motifs in Altmühltal, including the castle rock in Dollnstein, the landscape at Grösdorf or the village Gungolding.