Hugo Mühlig (1854-1929) was born in Dresden to a family of artists; his father Meno Mühlig (1823-1873)
was an accomplished Landscape and Genre painter, as was his uncle Bernhard Mühlig (1829-1910).
He was encouraged to follow suit and received his first artistic training from his father before studying at the Dresden Academy of Art between 1877-1880 under the illustrator Viktor Paul Mohn (1842-1911).