Chickens

Edgar MillerWW-1933-118514

1933·Gouache with incising and fingerprints, on masonite, prepared with a white ground·50.9 × 60.9 cm (20 1/16 × 24 in.)

Attending the School of the Art Institute of Chicago before and after the First World War, Miller described himself as “conspicuously absent—I wasn’t a good student.” Yet Miller continued to develop his artistic abilities, working in a variety of media such as sculpture, stained glass, painting, woodcarving, and tile. Despite this versatility, however, Miller wrote in 1936 that he was “just barely beginning to find [himself].” This painting was awarded the Watson F. Blair Purchase Prize in 1934 at the 13th Exhibition of Watercolors, Pastels, Drawings, and Monotypes, and the work entered the Art Institute’s collection. Chicago Tribune art critic Eleanor Jewett described this work in her exhibition review as an “Impression-istic Easter card.”

Catalogue

Year: 1933
Medium: Gouache with incising and fingerprints, on masonite, prepared with a white ground
Dimensions: 50.9 × 60.9 cm (20 1/16 × 24 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Edgar Miller

Artist

Edgar Miller

Painting

James Edgar Miller (1899–1993) was an American designer, painter, craftsman, master woodcarver and one of the nation's foremost stained-glass designers. He could sculpt and draw, and he was considered a pioneer in the use of graphic art in advertising. In the 1920s, he was called "the blond boy Michelangelo"; in the 1930s, "a new luminary" by Architecture Magazine; in the 1940s, "one of the most versatile artists in America." By the 1950s, he was the go-to guy for some of the nation's most successful industrial designers.

Chicago

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