artist, educator, b. Milwaukee. He studied in Europe (1894-1899) under Max Thedy at Weimar and Carl Marr (q.v.) at the Royal Art Academy in Munich. Returning to Milwaukee in 1899, he became the director of the Art Student's League (1900). In 1911 the financial distress of the league led Mueller, with the aid of Theodore Kronshage (q.v.), to organize a school of art in connection with the state normal school at Milwaukee. He headed this school from 1911 to 1923, and in this capacity his organizational ability enabled the school to expand its curriculum and increase its enrollment. Mueller resigned his position in 1923, two years after the art school was incorporated as the art department of the normal school. He spent the next several years painting in Europe, and in 1928 returned to the U.S., settling in San Marino, Calif., where he remained until his death. As an artist, he was primarily known as a landscape painter. P. Butts, Art in Wis., (Madison, 1936); W. G. Bruce, ed., Hist. of Milwaukee (3 vols., Chicago, 1922); Milwaukee journal, Mar. 17, 1935.

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[Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin biography]