Description

John F. Miller Print, Signed Print, Chicago Artist 11 x 8.5 inches. Digital composition - layered from Miller's photographs of urban detritus, graffiti and landscapes around his west loop studio. Exhibited: John Miller Retrospective, Rare Nest Gallery 2000. Untitled. CATALOG INFO: RNJM1408 Untitled Small Digital Print Undated (c. 2003) Archival ink jet print from digital image 11 x 8.5 inches overall / 10 x 8 inches image Signed lower right in pencil. Estate stamp and numbered en verso and Gallery stamped. Unframed. Plus, 2004 catalog for Miller's digital "Dypytryps", 8 x 8 inches, full color, 10 pages with essay by curator Daniel Schulman. For more than 60 years, the artist John Miller combined layered, gestural abstraction with rich, intense color in his paintings and prints. Miller was born in Princeton, Illinois, in 1927. He served as a sign painter in the US Army in Korea from 1946 to 1947. After returning, he attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Chicago. In 1953, with financial assistance from local benefactors Doc Walters and his wife Shirley, a teacher in the Chicago Public School system, Miller founded the 414 Art Workshop Gallery, one of Chicago’s earliest “alternative spaces.” Miller was a member of the workshop’s faculty, teaching classes in painting, design and jewelry-making, in addition to serving with other faculty in an advisory capacity from 1953 to 1959. He was a constant and influential fixture on the Chicago art scene over the years and taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 1958 until his retirement in 1998 as Professor Emeritus. He also taught painting at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois (1959 - 62); the Hyde Park Art Center (1957 - 58); the University of Illinois, Chicago (1959 – 62); and several classes at Kendall College, Evanston (1964 - 65). Miller was a frequent exhibitor in the Art Institute of Chicago’s Chicago & Vicinity shows from 1952 – 1962 and was active on the board of directors of Exhibition Momentum in 1956 – 1957. He exhibited in another important alternative space in Chicago, Superior Street Gallery (1959 - 61). Except for the year he spent living in Mexico from 1970 to 1971, and a Fulbright-Hayes Teaching Fellowship spent in England during 1975, Miller lived in Chicago most of his adult life. Miller devoted his career to exploring painterly and material issues, consistently combining a lush handling of pigment and color with an investigation into compositional structure. Miller began to concentrate on the monumental architecture of abstract, largely geometric forms set in dynamic equilibrium with energetic passages of freely painted, gestural strokes. Experiments with detritus led to large format collage paintings of laminated “junk” mail –then photographic compositions of garbage found in the alleys and streets around his west loop studio. From at least 1998, Miller translated his painterly concerns to the computer, producing unique large-scale modular archival prints that have been termed “digital paintings.” The artist layered his own photos with acquired patterns in vibrant hues, manipulating and “drafting” over progressive iterations. Circa 2012, Miller exhibited signs of Alzheimer’s disease. Miller passed away in 2021. SELECTED AWARDS & FELLOWSHIPS 1992/86 Norris Gallery Vicinity Exhibition, St. Charles, prize winner each year 1975 Fulbright-Hayes Teacher Exchange Fellowship, Wolverhampton, England 1963 Second Annual Chicago Arts Festival, McCormick Place, Prize winner 1959 Hyde Park Art Center, Annual Art Exhibition, Chicago, First Prize 1957 62nd Annual American Exhibition, Art Institute of Chicago, Prize EDUCATION 1947-1951 School of the Art Institute of Chicago 1955-1956 University of Chicago COLLECTIONS Susan Aurinko Greg Hertzleib, Valparaiso, IN Brauer Museum of Art, Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, IN Block Museum, Northwestern University, Evanston Elmhurst College Art Collection, Elmhurst Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago Northern Illinois University, DeKalb University of Chicago, Chicago Campbell Mithune, Chicago Kirkland & Ellis, Chicago Estate of Joseph R. Shapiro Samuel M. Budwig, Jr. Mrs. Blanche Koffler Estate of Ms. Claire Zeisler Mrs. Joanna Beal Westermann Mr. & Mrs. David C. Ruttenberg, Sr. Estate of Franz Schulz Union League Club Chicago ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS 1958-1998 Associate Professor, School of the Art Institute of Chicago 1975 Wolverhampton Polytechnic, Wolverhampton England, 1965-1967 Kendall College, Evanston 1956-1963 Northwestern University, Chicago 1959-1962 University of Illinois, Chicago 1958 University of Chicago, Chicago RELATED EXPERIENCES 1984-1988 Founder and Director, Fox River Center for Visual Arts, Aurora 1959-1961 Chairperson of Superior Street Gallery Corporation, Chicago 1956-1957 Board of Directors “Exhibition Momentum,” Chicago 1953-1958 Founder and Director, 414 Art Workshop Gallery, Chicago See my other auctions of rare art catalogs, art deco, signed artist jewelry and Chicagoana.