“When I first met Stephen, in the last century, I was immediately drawn to the spirituality, light, and shadow in his work. The way he coaxed paint and watercolor into dazzling interactions of thought and action. Over the years we had many conversations about Art and they were always insightful and I learned so much from him. I was making paintings at that time, but as my use of materials expanded, our conversations continued, with the realization that Art was about thought and feeling, the materials were secondary. I remember so fondly a show we did with Rebecca many years ago here in Columbus, so it is particularly poignant for me to have the opportunity to show our works together again, in Duet.”

Rob Wynne, October 2025

Over his prominent career, internationally recognized American artist Rob Wynne has drawn on text and imagery from literature, opera, theater, and the visual arts, recasting them in his exquisite sculptures, installations, and mixed-media works. Using materials such as textiles, printmaking, and, perhaps most characteristically, hand-poured mirrored glass, Wynne transfigures them into visually arresting pieces that reflect light and meaning in multifaceted ways. In Obstacle Illusion, a catalogue of Wynne’s work, A. M. Homes writes, “To introduce Rob Wynne is to invite you on a magical adventure, a tour through the heart and mind.”

For Duet, Wynne selected new sculptures from his studio to be paired with paintings by his friend, the late Stephen Mueller. In this exhibition, Wynne’s glistening, pooled glass sculptures appear effervescent on the wall, resonating with the metaphysical realms of Mueller’s paintings, whose cross-cultural motifs slyly infuse content into ostensibly formalist abstraction. An influential figure in abstract painting and later a writer and critic for Art in America, Stephen Mueller initially grounded his practice in the Color Field School and later in the group termed Lyrical Abstraction. Unafraid of sheer beauty, he sought to convey a complexity of abstraction through unusual interplays of color and form that engage both the senses and the intellect. Both Wynne and Mueller expand the conceptual boundaries of their mediums, creating a conversation around art and art-making and offering, through this exhibition, an exceptional opportunity to experience these two distinctive voices together.

Rob Wynne (b. 1948, New York, NY) is an American visual artist who lives and works in New York City. He received his BA from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY. His work has been the subject of numerous solo and group exhibitions. Recent solo exhibitions include Thence at Locks Gallery, Philadelphia (2025); The Underside of a Leaf at Gavlak, Palm Beach (2024); Afterglow at Craig Starr Gallery, New York (2023); Prelude at Contemporary Art Matters, Columbus, OH (2024); and Always Sometimes at Luciana Brito Galeria, São Paulo (2024). Wynne’s work has also been featured in group exhibitions at the Berkshire Botanical Garden (2025); the Boca Raton Museum of Art (2024); the McNay Art Museum, TX; P.S.1 Institute for Contemporary Art, NY; Long Beach Museum of Art, CA; The Drawing Center, NY; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, among others. Wynne’s work is held in major public collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; The Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY; The Norton Museum of Art, Palm Beach, FL; the Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH; and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. A fully illustrated monograph, Obstacle Illusion, was published in 2023 by Gregory R. Miller & Co. and is the first comprehensive survey of Wynne’s work from the 1970s to the present. Wynne is the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award.

Stephen Mueller (b. 1947, Norfolk, VA – d. 2011, New York, NY) was an American abstract painter. Raised in Dallas, Texas, he studied art at the University of Texas in Austin, earning his B.F.A. in 1969 and his M.F.A. at Bennington College in 1971. Upon graduation, he moved to New York City, where he lived and worked until his death in 2011. His first solo exhibition was in 1970 at the Richard Feigen Gallery while he was still a student at Bennington. Mueller exhibited widely during his lifetime, and, most recently, solo exhibitions of his work have included Atmospheric Paintings, Nature Morte, New Delhi, India, 2021; Looking East, Contemporary Art Matters, Columbus, OH, 2020; Paintings & Watercolors, Barry Whistler Gallery, Dallas, TX, 2020; and Gateless Gate, DC Moore Gallery, New York, NY, 2019. In 2003, a retrospective of his work was held at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska. A catalogue of his work, New Works, was published by Lennon, Weinberg, Inc., New York, in 2010, and another, Stephen Mueller: Selected Works 2007–2011, was published by Lennon, Weinberg, Inc., New York, in 2012. Stephen Mueller received numerous grants and fellowships, and his work is represented in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Brooklyn Museum; the Denver Art Museum; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.