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| (1945-2000) |
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Medium/Discipline: Crafts, Painting, Sculpture, Works on Paper
Birthplace: Baltimore, Maryland
Place of Death: Baltimore, Maryland
Maryland Affiliation: Born here, Active while in residence
Places of Residence: Baltimore, Maryland
Gender: Male
Race/Ethnicity: Black/African-American
Biography: Born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1945, Tom Miller remained there throughout his life and became a renowned decorative furniture painter and a beloved member of the city's art community. Miller grew up in a West Baltimore community called Sandtown-Winchester; into his teens, he said "most of the people I saw and interacted with were African-Americans." (King-Hammond, "Most Definitely: An Interview with Tom Miller"). He aspired at an early age to become an artist partly from the example of those working in his community and from his innate interest in drawing and painting. His father was a tailor and his mother a homemaker and seamstress. Miller associates his artistic background, including his father and many in his community, with a history of "Negro Carpenters," who, out of necessity and creativity, used found objects and materials on hand to resolve various household needs or problems: Leslie King-Hammond writes that "The Negro carpenter has a long tradition in the history of Baltimore painted furniture," hearkening to the first artisans in this country (King-Hammond, "Most Definitely").
Tom Miller attended Carver Vocational Technical High School with an interest in becoming a commercial artist or illustrator, and then won a scholarship to the Maryland Institute, College of Art (MICA), where he earned a Bachelor's Degree in Fine Arts in 1967. After college, he worked for 20 years as an Art Resource Teacher in city public schools, traveling to schools within the city to train art teachers and students. In 1987, he left teaching and returned to MICA to earn his graduate degree. Miller was one of the first graduates of the distinguished Ford Fellowship (now the Philip Morris Fellowship) program at the Institute, which was initiated to support non-whites in their fine art and art education careers. From then on, Miller was a full-time artist.
Trained as a painter working on canvases at MICA, Miller is now best known for his painted furniture, which he began to work with in the mid-1980s after trying to cover a marred surface with decoration on a piece of furniture. Baltimore artist Joyce Scott also influenced his work in the medium of painted furniture by suggesting he contribute a piece to a show she was handling. Miller built a tea cart as his first carpentry endeavor and painted it with alligators and black hands; he enjoyed the challenge of working on a three-dimensional work and "realized that this kind of treatment on furniture could really energize it and its environment dramatically." (Sapolin, p. 86) Most of the furniture on which he painted, using enamel, acrylic or polyester resin, was working class furniture from the 1930s and 1940s. In some cases, Miller added elements within or beyond the contour of the object to anthropomorphize or build upon the imagery of a piece. His iconography was symbolic, sometimes political: watermelons and lips, images popularly used to stereotype African-Americans, were used to humorously subvert racist connotations; birds, which he calls "basically beautiful" and he felt represented freedom; alligators, which were shown eating African-Americans as a humorous convention in American history, appear in Miller's work ironically smiling, showing all their teeth. The images Miller employed in his work had both social and personal meaning to him. Patterns, such as dots, and bright or contrasting black/white color are strong characteristics of his work. A fellow artist suggested that his work employs an African flavor and Art Deco design; the term "Afro-Deco" has since been embraced by the art community and by Miller to describe his style.
In 1996, Miller illustrated Can a Coal Scuttle Fly?, a children's book published by the Maryland Historical Society. He also created six murals at the request of the Mayor's Advisory Committee on Arts and Culture. Gary Kachadourian, the committee's visual-arts coordinator, says he commissioned the first mural from Miller after seeing a design the artist submitted for an Artscape exhibit. "In a week, he had an absolutely perfect design," Kachadourian remembers. (Murphy, City Paper) Diagnosed with AIDS in 1989, Kachadourian recalls Miller working on a mural as an IV pumped medication from his backpack into his arm. Carl Clark, photographer and long-time friend of Miller, said, "I don't think his illness changed his work. Thomas [was] such a wonderful, forgiving person that even [with] the horrors of his illness, even [with] the unpleasantness he suffered being a black youth, being a black male, the unpleasantness he suffered for being a homosexual, he never lost his love for beauty. Even in his work, when he talks about the horrors, he does it in a way that makes you smile." Tom Miller had a new piece of art in the works when he died at age 54 of complications of AIDS in June 2000; throughout his illness, he worked whenever possible.
In 1995, the BMA and Maryland Art Place (MAP) co-hosted a retrospective of Miller's decorative furniture; the BMA exhibit alone drew nearly 46,000 visitors. Collectors bought Miller's work as quickly as he could turn it out; his last completed work was a commission for prominent local businesswoman and arts patron Marsha Jews. "His work was in demand years in advance," scholar King-Hammond says. During his career, he was represented by the G. H. Dalsheimer Gallery and Steven Scott Gallery. Two sculptures, Jungle Chest and Mardi Gras King, and three prints, Maryland Crab Feast, Summer in Baltimore and The National Aquarium in Baltimore, are held in the permanent collection of the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA). His work has been shown in several major national exhibitions of work by African-Americans and resides in the private collections of many Baltimore residents.
Education/Training: Maryland Institute College of Art, B.F.A., 1967, M.F.A, 1987
Selected References: Murphy, Eileen, "Tom Miller 1945-2000," City Paper, Baltimore, MD: June 28, 2000.
King-Hammond, Leslie and Stokes Sims, Lowery. Tom Miller Retrospective: Decorated Furniture, (Baltimore, MD: Maryland Art Place/The Baltimore Museum of Art), 1995.
Sapolin, Donna. "Tom Miller," Essence Magazine (July 1986), p. 86.
Maryland Institutions Holding Artworks: The Baltimore Museum of Art
Maryland Institutions Holding Biographical Material: Baltimore Museum of Art (vertical files)
Single-Artist Exhibitions: M.F.A. Graduate Thesis Exhibition, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD, 1986.
Lafayette College, Easton, PA, 1986.
Columbia Center for the Arts, Columbia, MD, 1988.
G. H. Dalsheimer Gallery, Baltimore, MD, 1988, 1990.
Lew Allen/Butler Gallery, Santa Fe, NM, 1990.
New Painted Furniture and Objects, Steven Scott Gallery, Baltimore, MD, 1992.
Exuberant Extravagance: Painted Furniture 1992-1993, Steven Scott Gallery, Baltimore, MD, 1993.
Afro-Deco Furniture, Hammonds House Museum, Atlanta, Georgia, 1993.
Painted Furniture, Williams Gallery, Princeton, NJ, 1993.
Tom Miller Retrospective: Decorated Furniture, Maryland Art Place, February 11-March 18, 1995 and The Baltimore Museum of Art, February 22-April 16, 1995.
Multiple-Artist Exhibitions: Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts, Annapolis, MD, 1987.
G. H. Dalsheimer Gallery, 1986, 1987.
Eubie Blake Cultural Center, Baltimore, MD, 1988, 1991, 1993.
The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY, 1989.
Hampton University Art Gallery, Hampton, VA, 1989.
Artscape, Baltimore, MD, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993.
Baltimore Museum of Art, 1988, 1991, 1992, 2000.
Montpelier Cultural Arts Center, Laurel, MD, 1990.
National Black Arts Festival Invitational, Atlanta, GA, 1990.
Steven Scott Gallery, Baltimore, MD, 1991 (2 shows), 1993 (3 shows), 1994 (3 shows), 1995.
Next Generation: Southern Black Aesthetic, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, NC (traveling exhibition to 5 museums), 1991.
Works in Wood, Dundalk Community College, Baltimore, MD, 1991.
University of California, San Diego, 1991.
Louisville Visual Art Association, KY, 1991.
Openspace Gallery, Allentown, PA, 1991.
Academy of the Arts, Easton, MD, 1991.
Uncommon Beauty in Common Objects: The Legacy of African-American Craft Art, National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center, Wilberforce, Ohio (traveling exhibition to 5 museums), 1993.
Awards: Baltimore City Public School System's Councilmanic Merit Work Scholarship, 1963
Ford Foundation Grant, 1985
Purchase Award for Mural Design, St. Joseph's Hospital, Baltimore, MD, 1986
Maryland State Arts Council, Grant-in-Aid, 1987
Individual Artist Grant, Maryland State Arts Council (Citation for Artistic Excellence from Governor William Donald Schaefer), 1990
Mural commission, North Avenue and Harford Roads, Baltimore; awarded by the Mayor's Advisory Committee on Arts and Culture, Baltimore, MD, 1991
Purchase Award, Louisville Visual Art Association, KY, 1991
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