Cooper Hewitt says...
Hans Moller (American, b. Germany, 1905-2000) was an abstractionist artist known as a colorist. From 1919-1927, he took night classes at Kunstgewerbeschule Wuppertal-Barmen, an arts and crafts school local to his German hometown, while working days as a bricklayer. He then studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin. He married Helen Rosenblum in 1933. Three years later, they immigrated to the United States to escape the Nazis. They settled in New York City, where Moller found work as a graphic designer with Lord & Thomas.
He had his first solo show at Bonestell Gallery in 1942. Throughout the next two decades, he had more than 25 solo exhibitions at various Manhattan galleries; almost all sold out. He experimented with many styles of painting, including expressionism, abstractionism, surrealism, cubism, pointillism, and fauvism. He made hundreds of oil paintings, watercolors, collages, and drawings, and also experimented with stained glass. He painted landscapes, self-portraits, and portraits of his wife.
In the 1950s, he sold numerous textile designs through Associated American Artists.
He was represented by the Midtown-Payson Gallery in New York until 1995. That year, the Dusseldorf-based gallerist Torsten Bröhan organized an exhibition of Moller’s work; it was the first exhibition of his work in Germany.
Moller’s works are included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Hirshorn Museum, and the Allentown Art Museum.
