Louis Mueller's 'Nose Ring' combines an immaculate finish with a note of surreal humour. As Richard Merkin noted in his exhibition notes for the Franklin Parrasch Gallery, New York, few contemporary artists were untouched by the influence of cubism and surrealism but none 'that I know of has married the two with the grace, wit and endless intervention of Louis Mueller'.

Mueller was born in Paterson, New Jersey in 1943 and studied at the Rochester Institute of Technology, New York. He described his almost accidental move in metalwork and jewellery rather than art as based largely on a fear of drawing. After Rochester, he became one of the first students on the newly founded graduate programme at the Rhode Island School of Design under Jack Prip. He was exposed to developments in European jewellery through the presence of German jeweller Claus Bury as a visiting lecturer and subsequently met Hermann Jünger, Otto Künzli, and his future wife Barbara Seidenath. In 1977, he returned to Rhode Island to teach on the Light Metals course. He was the Head of the Jewelry and Metalsmithing Department at Rhode Island until 2003.