Erich Muller-Kraus was born in 1911 in Germany. He studied at the legendary "Kölner Werkschulen". His early work, belonging to the German avantgarde of Informel after World War II, is hardly known as it was destroyed for the greatest part in 1943. His oeuvre from the 1930s obviously reflects his affinity to the abstraction of the artists group "Kölner Progressive".
