Maritime Historical Artist

About the Artist

Recognized by maritime historians and curators as outstanding in his field, artist Bill Muller's historical paintings accurately capture and preserve selected visual moments and events from our nation's rich maritime heritage. His paintings are imbued with a sensitivity and scholarship that largely come from first hand experiences, and historical research, and his lifelong love and understanding of his subject matter.

Bill was a founding director and is a Fellow of the American Society of Marine Artists and is an advisor to the National Maritime Historical Society.

"I was inspired, in my 1940's early childhood, from watching majestic sidewheel steamboats on the Hudson River, and the bustling shipping traffic of New York Harbor. I felt compelled, from the outset, to draw pictures of the many graceful vessels that delighted my 'artist's eye'. And what a joy for me, years later, to gain youthful employment with the famed Hudson River Day Line, and becoming quartermaster of the big passenger steamer Alexander Hamilton, the last of the great sidewheelers!"

Before his mid-twenties, Bill yielded to his rising desires for an art career. After studying at Pratt Institute, The School of Visual Arts and the Art Student's League, all in New York, he spent fifteen years employed as an artist/illustrator with major New York advertising agencies and design firms. By the 1980's Bill was creating maritime oil paintings, and following a successful one-man exhibition at a Madison Avenue gallery, turned full time to his current career as a professional maritime historical artist.

Bill's work has been exhibited in many maritime museums, and is represented in numerous private and corporate collections, including the Forbes collection, McAllister Towing Co., United States Lines, Farrell Lines, the New York City Hall collection, The Twenty-One Club, Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette Corp., the Danish Embassy, NY, the United States Coast Guard Academy Museum, World Yacht, Inc. and others. His work has been published in a wide variety of historical books and periodicals over the years, including the major maritime art book "Liners in Art", by Ken Vard. More recently, he is a featured in the premier contemporary art book, "Bound for Blue Water", published by Greenwich Workshop Press.

A collector art book of Bill Muller's historical ship paintings, with his personal narrative, is presently under development by a New England publishing firm.

Professional Recognitions and Endorsements

Bill received the Award of Excellence in the 25th Annual International Marine Art Exhibition at the Maritime gallery, Mystic Seaport Museum.

The Samuel Ward Stanton Lifetime Achievement Award for "distinguished contributions, through his artwork, to the history and public understanding of steam vessels," presented by the Steamship Historical Society of America.

The National Maritime Historical Society's Award, presented to him by Congressman Hamilton Fish, Jr., for Bill's "dedicated contributions to history through faithfully recording on canvas the maritime history of the Hudson River and the Port of New York."

William G. Muller's work has been exhibited at the following venues:

• Union League Club, New York - a retrospective of over #40 paintings
• Peabody Museum, Salem Massachusetts
• Smith Gallery, New York City
• South Street Seaport Museum, New York City
• Philadelphia Maritime Museum, Pennsylvania
• Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, Mississippi
• Maryland Historical Society, Maryland
• Nassau County Museum of Fine Art, New York
• New York Customs House, New York City
• Merchant Marine Committee Room, U.S. Congress, Washington, D.C.
• Disney World's "Living Seas" Exhibition, Epcot Center, Florida
• Mystic Seaport Museum Maritime Gallery, Mystic, CT.
• Marine Museum, U.S. Maritime Academy, Kings Point, NY
• Frye Art Museum, Seattle, Washington
• Cummer Museum, Jacksonville, Florida
• Cape Museum of Fine Art, Cape Cod, Massachusetts
• Geary Gallery, Darien, CT
• Delaware Museum of Art, Wilmington, Delaware
• J. Russell Jinishian Gallery, Fairfield, CT
• Newport Art Museum, Newport, Rhode Island
• Maine Maritime Museum, Bath, Maine
• Connecticut River Museum, Essex, CT
• Vero Beach Museum of Art, Vero Beach, FL
• Marine Arts Gallery, Peabody, MA
• Noyes Museum of Art, Oceanville, NJ
• Minnesota Marine Art Museum, Winona, MN
• Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, St. Michaels, MD
• New Bedford Art Museum, New Bedford, MA

"At the present time we have an exceptional marine artist living and working in the Northeast. Bill Muller's paintings are truer than the clearest photographs and yet are as romantic as the paintings of the earlier Hudson River School. His paintings are important social and historical documents."

"There is a rich quality in his work that comes, I think, not just from thoroughly understanding his subject, but from caring. That is the precious element that lies at the heart of Bill Muller's splendid paintings, a caring uniquely expressed in art."

"Not since the great sound steamers stopped running more than 50 years ago, have I witnessed anything that could capture the feeling, or evoke the excitement, of those vessels as well as Bill Muller's paintings. No other artist, past or present, has been so successful in bringing the full sense of the nautical grandeur of that era back to life."

"In my half-century of maritime work I have come to know many excellent marine artists. None has had finer talent, style or credentials than Bill Muller."