Edgar Miller (artist)

She was a school teacher who taught the Choctaw Indians/People/Native Americans in the Oklahoma Territory; she eventually moved to Idaho to search for work with her brothers and sisters.

Idaho Falls, a western frontier town of little more than one thousand people, served as a central inspiration for many of Edgar's motifs and ideas in his art – history, science, and nature.

Around the age of four, after he saw a painting of Custer's last stand at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, he decided to fully pursue art: "I could imagine no other existence but to be an artist."

Horses, and animals in general, are prominent and frequently presented in Edgar's art and designs: "The affection for her became a definite part of me."

At 9 years old he created complete illustrations of his favorite poems, Tennyson's "Lady of Shalott" and Longfellow's "Skeleton in Armor".

Jo He (real name Orzo French Eastman 1828–1916) lived at the edge of Idaho Falls around the turn of the Century.

[1] Edgar Miller arrived in Chicago in January 1917, enrolled at the Art Institute and took a room in the Jane Addams Hullhouse (the nation's first settlement house).

Bellows showed Miller some of his ideas on symmetry and space regarding painting and pictures, which made an important impression on him.

Through Iannelli, Miller met important studio clients like Marshall Field & Company and Holabird & Root, and developed a network of future employers.

[1] In his 20s Edgar was already an active and established artist in Chicago's creative world, designing illustrations for books and ads for Marshall Field's Fashions of the Hour magazine, amongst many other commissions and projects.

He also busily promoted other arts and artists; for example, he introduced musical works by composers Stravinsky, Ravel, DeBussy and Prokofiev at his short-lived gallery space, The House at the End of the Street.

He ran it for a few years, and afterwards helped run a gallery on the top floor of the Dil Pickle Club, a bohemian hangout in the neighborhood of Tower Town.

In 1923, he won his second Logan Medal, this time for his stained-glass work; Howard Van Doren Shaw was one of the judges of the competition.

Around 1927 Sol Kogen, his friend from the Art Institute, brought his idea – of finding and rehabilitating old houses in an artistic manner – to Miller.

A 1943 article in the New York Times by Paul A. Hochman says about the Carl Street Studios, "In this one structure, there's a touch of Moderne, Deco, Prairie, Tudor, Mission, a little English Country House, and Arts and Crafts.

Talented and ambitious Mexican artisan Jesus Torres was Miller's main assistant on the Carl Street project.

Kogen and Miller begin their second multi-unit, artists' residence remodeling project in 1928, the Kogen-Miller complex on Wells Street.

The rear building was leased to Rudolph W. Glasner, businessman and patron of the Art Institute, who commissioned Edgar to design and execute "a party house" for him.

Here Miller attempted his first major woodcarvings, his stained-glass ideas are fresh and original, and in general his work across many mediums is regarded as some of his best ever.

Of this Wells Street complex, the Kogen-Miller Studios, Alice McKinstry wrote in the August 1930 issue of Woman Athletic: "homes that you have no right to live in unless you understand, and like, DeBussy's music, and Roerich's paintings, and Dudley Poore's poetry, and Anton Bruehl's photographs, and the dynamic folly of Adolf Bolm's ju-ju dance."

In '31, there was a large exhibit at the Art Institute's Summer Show of a wide variety of his work, including carved chairs, benches, glazed pottery, mosaics and terracotta columns.

The nudity of female performers at some of the concessions almost led to a scandal when a petition was issued to shut down the exhibit for being "lewd and lascivious".

They called it "an opportunity to work toward a conception of human organic modern architecture that can achieve compact, livable, light house-keeping units in minimum workable space, with added factors of comfort and beauty."

Also in 1935, Miller completed the plaster plaques at Punch and Judy Theatre, as well as the ornate lead cut grill of various laborers for the Trustees System Service Building.

He promptly married Dale Holcomb, a textile designer whom he met while she was working at the Streets of Paris exhibit in the 1933 World's Fair.

For example, in 1941 Miller created bas-relief sculptures for Northwestern University's Technological Institute and he again worked with Andrew Rebori on the Dr. Philip Weintraub House.

Then a series of new commissions: murals depicting Chicago history for the Chicago Title and Trust Company, barbecue scenes for a Fred Harvey restaurant, foyer and bar murals for the Palmer House hotel, a company history of the Hudson Pulp and Paper Corporation, and several sculptural projects for Jo Mead Designs.

She used Miller's handmade home as a meeting ground and safe house for radicals like Fred Hampton, Angela Davis and Eldridge Cleaver, and for groups like the Black Panthers.

Although living in questionable circumstances in the Bay Area, and seemingly on the decline, Miller revitalized when he returned to Chicago and began to actively produce art.

[1] In 2024-25 the Depaul Art Museum in Chicago curated and hosted Edgar Miller: Anti-Modern, 1917–1967, the most extensive solo presentation of Miller's work featuring examples of his drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, illustration and graphic design, textiles, ceramics, jewelry, woodcarving, stained glass, interior design, and architectural projects, alone and in collaboration with other artists.