Lilian May Miller (July 20, 1895 – January 11, 1943) was an American painter, woodblock printmaker and poet born in Tokyo, Japan.

In the world of art she marked her place with imagery, while she attended presentations in traditional kimonos, and signed her paintings with a monogram.

[2] She was a journalist and secretary at the State Department in Washington, D.C. Miller then lived with her parents in New York and worked at the Consular Service.

In early 1936, after a political imbroglio in which Japanese radical officers assassinated several leading politicians, Miller and her mother left Japan and moved to Honolulu, Hawaii.

[18] In the autumn of 1938 she moved to San Francisco and she began to include the massive redwoods and cedars of California in her work.

The kimono represented the Japanese traditional culture in which she was raised, but she didn't follow the strict protocols for developing wood block printing, this was something that made her popular with Americans.

[19] Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, she destroyed much of her woodprint works, having felt betrayed by Japan.

[16]: 32, 86 The paradox of her situation was that in Japan she was a foreigner trying to keep a traditional art alive, while in America she was trying to convey the 'beautiful spirit of Asia' in a land of industrialisation.

In America, particularly with at gallery shows or for newspaper photographers, she adopted a 'Japanese' identity, wearing a kimono, but was of course an Anglo-American woman of social standing.

The others, who had all lived in Japan, were Helen Hyde, who first made the Japanese prints in 1901, Elizabeth Keith and Bertha Lum.

[20] In September 1920 she turned to woodblock printing, creating images of Korean people and countryside, which she sold in Tōkyō and the United States.

The images, mostly of scenes of Korean life, were sold in Tokyo, Seoul, large American cities, Shanghai, and Peking.

[13] On September 1, 1923, Tōkyō was largely destroyed by the Great Kantō earthquake, including most of Miller's paintings and prints.

One of her prints, A Strange Scene in Korea, depicted a woman carrying a baby on her back with a basket over her head.

[15] In Rain Blossoms that Miler made in 1928, the colorful umbrellas, or 'blossoms', are contrasted against the plain background of the people's bodies.

Miller was admired for her ability to execute the entire woodblock printing process, including the block-cutting stage, by herself.

[8] She had a network of key female art patrons and admirers of the time, including Empress Nagako of Japan; Lou Henry Hoover, the wife of U.S. president Herbert Hoover; Anne Morrow Lindbergh, aviator and spouse of famous Charles Lindbergh;[13][16]: 20, 27, 31  and Grace Nicholson, a renowned Pasadena art dealer.

[23] In 1927, Miller published a revised version of her poetry book Grass Blades from a Cinnamon Garden, which was illustrated with her woodcut prints.

[8] Author Kendall H. Brown stresses the visual quality of many of the poems, and concludes that while "her poetry was often flat and contrived, her art was becoming increasingly radiant and natural."