{"id":158,"date":"2017-03-10T14:17:15","date_gmt":"2017-03-10T19:17:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/?p=158"},"modified":"2023-01-09T11:31:07","modified_gmt":"2023-01-09T16:31:07","slug":"remembering-robert-emmett-mueller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/remembering-robert-emmett-mueller\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembering Robert Emmett Mueller"},"content":{"rendered":"

Robert Mueller, who died Jan. 18 at age 91, was a polymath in the truest sense of the word. He was a scientist, engineer, inventor, and technical writer, as well as a poet, musician, puppet maker, and prolific artist who, in 2014, donated 1,500 pieces of his life\u2019s work to Monmouth University.<\/p>\n

Mueller\u2019s creativity was evident early on: By 13, he had written several science fiction stories. He later served in the U.S. Navy and earned degrees in electrical engineering from MIT and aesthetics from NYU, yet he never stopped creating art. He worked in various mediums, specializing in woodcuts and abstract oil paintings. His ability to combine science and art led him to develop his own painting style, which he called \u201cmathematico-abstract.\u201d His works were featured at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Pushkin Museum, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, among other places.<\/p>\n

For Mueller, art provided a way to express his feelings about the world, says friend and political science professor Saliba Sarsar \u201978. \u201cHis work was a response to the inhumanity caused by war, racial injustice, and so many other events and behaviors that deform our world,\u201d says Sarsar. \u201cHe wanted to reform it, and transform it into something much more beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Monmouth University is incredibly fortunate to possess such an extensive, diverse collection of Mueller\u2019s artwork, which will continue to serve as a source of inspiration for students and faculty from all disciplines, says Sarsar.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething Bob said, which has stayed with me, was, \u2018Creativity is a young person\u2019s gift and an adult\u2019s duty,\u201d says Sarsar. \u201cHe practiced what he preached.\u201d<\/p>\n

TOP: Robert Emmett Mueller pictured in the 1960s. Photo courtesy of Andy Mueller-Lust.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The artist donated 1,500 pieces of his life’s work to Monmouth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":74,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"image_focus":"","hide_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-remembrance"],"thumbnail":"\"\"","catString":"Remembrance","issue":"Spring 2017","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":629,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions\/629"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}