Kenneth Hayes Miller (March 11, 1876 – January 1, 1952) was an American painter, printmaker, and teacher.

Kenneth Hayes Miller
Portrait photograph of Kenneth Hayes Miller, c.1910
Born(1876-03-11)March 11, 1876
DiedJanuary 1, 1952(1952-01-01) (aged 75)
Alma materArt Students League of New York

Career edit

Born in Oneida, New York, he studied at the Art Students League of New York with Kenyon Cox, Henry Siddons Mowbray and with William Merritt Chase at the New York School of Art.[1][2] His early works were influenced by the paintings of his friend Albert Pinkham Ryder, and depict figures in phantasmagorical landscapes.[3]

After 1920 Miller became interested in the underpainting-and-glazing techniques of the old masters, which he employed in painting contemporary scenes. He is especially noted for his many paintings of women shopping in department stores.[3] The art historian M. Sue Kendall says: "In their classical poses and formalized compositions, Miller’s shoppers become ovoid and columnar forms in cloche hats and chokers, a study of geometricized volumes in space trying to inhabit a single shallow picture plane."[3] Active as a printmaker throughout his career, Miller created many etchings, some of which reproduce his painted compositions. His work was part of the painting event in the art competition at the 1936 Summer Olympics.[4]

Although he used traditional methods and was hostile to artistic modernism, Miller believed that good art is always radical in nature.[5] He was a socialist, and intended his art to have a political dimension.[5]

By the time of his death in New York City in 1952, his reputation was in eclipse, but he was rediscovered in the 1970s.[3]

Students edit

Miller taught at the Art Students League from 1911 until 1951.[3] His students include: Peggy Bacon, George Bellows, Isabel Bishop, Arnold Blanch, Patrick Henry Bruce, Minna Citron, John McCrady, Thelma Cudlipp, Horace Day, Dorothy Eaton, Arnold Friedman, Lloyd Goodrich, Josephine Hopper, Rockwell Kent, Yasuo Kuniyoshi,[6] Anne Kutka McCosh, Emma Fordyce MacRae, Edward Middleton Manigault, Reginald Marsh, George L.K. Morris,[7] Walter Tandy Murch, Louise Emerson Ronnebeck, George Tooker, Russel Wright, Albert Pels, William C. Palmer, Molly Luce,[8] and Helen Winslow Durkee.

Public collections edit

Collections where his works can be found include:[9]

References edit

  1. ^ Opitz, Glenn B , Editor, Mantle Fielding’s Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors & Engravers, Apollo Book, Poughkeepsie NY, 1986
  2. ^ Phillips Collection Archived 2018-07-10 at the Wayback Machine retrieved December 17, 2009
  3. ^ a b c d e Kendall, M. Sue, "Kenneth Hayes Miller", Oxford Art Online, retrieved June 4, 2012
  4. ^ "Kenneth Hayes Miller". Olympedia. Retrieved 14 August 2020.
  5. ^ a b Scott, William B., and Peter M. Rutkoff (1999). New York Modern: the Arts and the City. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 116. ISBN 0801859980.
  6. ^ Tatham, David (2006). "Drawn to Stone: The Early Lithographs of Yasuo Kuniyoshi". North American prints, 1913-1947: an examination at century's end. Syracuse University Press. p. 100.
  7. ^ George Morris on AskArt.com
  8. ^ Eleanor Tufts; National Museum of Women in the Arts (U.S.); International Exhibitions Foundation (1987). American women artists, 1830–1930. International Exhibitions Foundation for the National Museum of Women in the Arts. ISBN 978-0-940979-01-7.
  9. ^ Smithsonian archives retrieved December 17, 2009

External links edit