Alan Muller was born in 1953 in Margaret River, Western Australia. As a child he developed an ongoing love of drawing. At age twelve Alan finally persuaded his parents to buy him a small set of oil paints. He began learning to paint by trying to copy Masters from books, along with instruction and encouragement from his school teachers and local adult artists from Merredin.
In 1969 he achieved equal top marks in Western Australia for Art in the Leaving Certificate and was awarded a Commonwealth Scholarship for tertiary studies. He was offered a place in Fine Art but due to parental insistence, in 1970 began an Associateship in Design course at the Western Australian Institute of Technology, now Curtin University. He began full time work in late 1973 as a Designer for the Western Australian Museum.
In 1977 he exhibited paintings professionally for the first time in the Seven Young Western Australian Artists at the Undercroft Gallery, University of Western Australia [UWA]. His first solo exhibition of paintings was in 1980 at Fremantle Arts Centre. Three solo exhibitions followed at Gallery 52, Claremont that included two portraits that were finalists in the Archibald Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales. These were a portrait of George Haynes in 1983 and a self portrait in 1984.
He was offered a Senior Designer position in 1984 with the History Trust of South Australia and moved to Adelaide to design a new Migration Museum, the first of its kind in Australia. Alan held two solo exhibitions at Anima Gallery in North Adelaide.
Alan moved to Sydney in 1987 to take up a Senior Designer position at the new National Maritime Museum, Darling Harbour and exhibited regularly in alternative art spaces in Redfern, Newtown and Surry Hills. In 1997 he returned to Perth to focus on Art. Since 2000 he has lived in Heathridge, where he has home studios for painting and drawing. He held solo exhibitions at Gallery East, North Fremantle in 2001, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2012. He held a solo exhibition at Melody Smith Gallery in Carlisle in 2014 and a solo exhibition of drawings at Nyisztor Studio in Melville in 2015.
Alan’s work is held in the collections of Artbank, Armadale Redevelopment Authority Collection, Lawrence Wilson Gallery [UWA] Perth Central Tafe, Royal Perth Hospital, City of Perth, City of Stirling, City of Fremantle, City of Wanneroo, Shire of Mundaring, Army Museum of Western Australia, and in private collections in Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria.
Date of birth1953Place of birth / nationalityMargaret River, Western AustraliaPlace activeHeathridge, Western Australia
