(Left:
A small oil sketch on a panel shows Miller's impressionist influence
and skill with the figure. View more artwork at the end of this
article.)
By Cathleen McCarthy
(Left:
A small oil sketch on a panel shows Miller's impressionist influence
and skill with the figure. View more artwork at the end of this
article.)
Strolling through the College's List Gallery, Virginia Stern Brown '49 and her husband, Kenneth Brown '47, smile with satisfaction as they look at the paintings they recently donated to their alma mater. It's not unusual for Swarthmore to receive donations in the form of art, china, or antiques, but it's rare indeed to receive much of the life's work of an individual artist--in this case, Virginia's aunt, Mildred Bunting Miller. "We had more paintings than we could use," Virginia says. "And we wanted her work to be seen."
More than 300 of Miller's paintings and hundreds of other works, valued at about $350,000, are now in the hands of the College, where Miller applied for admission 90 years ago and was accepted. But Swarthmore lacked an art program then, and Miller ended up at Philadelphia's Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. There she trained from 1910 to 1915 under painting legends like Daniel Garber and Cecilia Beaux, and eventually she became one of the few prominent women among the Pennsylvania impressionists.
List Gallery Director Andrea Packard '85 points to examples from the College's permanent collection of paintings, hung near the Miller exhibit. "These make an interesting backdrop [for the Miller works] because they're the American painters she would have studied at the academy, including Peale and Eakins. She must have looked at works like these," Packard says, pointing to impressionist landscapes by Garber and Childe Hassam, "and they must have seemed so lively and of-the-time then. This was what students were aspiring to."
The donation has led to the first serious exposure of Miller's work since her death in 1964. Miller's art supported her for most of her life, earning several prestigious awards and exhibits in prominent museums. But after her death, few paintings appeared on the market, and her name virtually disappeared from the art world.
Now her paintings are being warmly received by local art critics and have attracted several dealers, one of whom bought 27 works on the spot. The College plans to sell most of the collection over the next few years, using the proceeds to endow the directorship of the List Gallery. Miller's work, which will go on display again in June during Alumni Weekend, depicts the rural landscapes around Philadelphia, where the artist spent half a century, and southern California, where she lived in prolific isolation for her last 18 years.
Virginia Brown pauses before an elegant gouache. "This is one of my favorites. That's Painter's Farm," she says, pointing to a cream-colored farmhouse in the painting, part of the Pennsylvania Academy's country school in Chester Springs, Pa., which Miller co-directed from 1916 to 1934. "I knew many of these places as a very small child."
Kenneth Brown met Mildred Miller on the Browns' honeymoon, when they spent three weeks at the artist's California desert oasis. While Miller painted Ginny's portrait, Kenneth painted the artist's studio, and the three became fast friends. Though scientists themselves, the Browns ended up living the artist life vicariously through Miller. "Art is such a tenuous thing. The standards for gauging 'important art' are not like the standards applied to science. Artists must live with a lot of uncertainty," Kenneth says. "But she was a strong-minded woman with a lot of ideas that were way ahead of her time."
When the time came to place the collection, the Browns met with art experts and consulted gallery owners. Offers were made to buy the collection outright, Virginia says, "but the gallery owners we spoke to had priorities that were very different from ours." In the end, the Quaker couple took a Quakerly approach to the problem. "We agreed to ponder the situation for three days without discussing our thoughts," Virginia says. At the end of that time, they sat down, and she announced her desire to donate the collection to Swarthmore. "He smiled," she recalls, "and he said, 'That's exactly what I want to do.'"
And how would Aunt Mildred feel about their decision? "Oh, she would be so pleased," Kenneth says without hesitation. "This is the beginning of a period where she will become known again--perhaps better known than she was in her own lifetime."
More of Mildred Miller's artwork:
Miller2: Miller studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where she experimented with different styles. Many French and American arts were fascinated by Japanese themes.
Miller3: Brush strokes at the bottom of this unframed gouache show Miller's search for the precise color and tone.
Miller4: Pastoral landscapes were an important subject for Pennsylvania regional artists. This scene is typical of the area near Chester Springs, Pa., where Miller co-directed an art school.
Miller5: The contrast between youth and age is reinforced by Miller's boldly designed interplay of vertical trees and blue shadows on the horizontal surface of a building.
