Peter Miller

Hieroglyphics, Historic and Cultural Commentary by Female American Modernist

1950's

"Awanyu" is a 18 x 24 inches, oil on canvas painting by American modernist, female artist Peter Miller. The work is painted in a vibrant color palette, a signature of Peter Millers' style, often inviting her sense of lively spirituality into her paintings. The title "Awanyu" is derived from the Native American Tewa beliefs and traditions. Avanyu (also Awanyu), is a Tewa deity, the guardian of water. Represented as a horned or plumed serpent with curves suggestive of flowing water or the zig-zag of lightning, Awanyu appears on the walls of caves located high above canyon rivers in New Mexico and Arizona. The work is estate stamped 202063 on verso and framed in a natural wood floater frame. The painting has been conserved and inspected by conservation specialist, Gratz Gallery & Conservation Studio, Inc. American artist Peter Miller (1913-1996) was born Henrietta Myers in Hanover, Pennsylvania. She began using the name Peter Miller after concluding her studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1934 and her marriage to fellow artist and Academy student Earle Miller in 1935. She felt collectors and critics would take her paintings more seriously if she was identified as a male. In childhood, Henrietta and her best friend Ruth picked fictitious nicknames for themselves, and Henrietta reportedly decided upon the name Peter because she liked the idea that it was derived from the Greek word for “rock” or “stone”. Drawn to being one with the natural world would prove to be an essential inspiration to her creativity throughout her life. Miller is classified as an American Modernist, a reputation she earned for having shown at the prestigious gallery and premiere showcase for Surrealist painting of Julien Levy in New York in the 1940s. Reviewers of her exhibitions noted the unmistakable influence of the artists Joan Miró, whose work she owned and whom she knew, and Arthur Carles, whom she studied with, and sources in Native American culture, which came from sharing time between her home state of Pennsylvania and New Mexico. Peter and her husband Earle considered New Mexico their spiritual home, and in 1935 they built a ranch in Española, about 25 miles north of Santa Fe. Being neighbors of the indigenous people of the Tewa Pueblo, their crafts and religious beliefs fascinated Peter and the reliance of Native Americans upon the land and the animals permeated her work for most of her career. Their belief that all creatures could serve as intermediaries in communication with the spiritual world, inspired Miller to incorporate their symbols in her own paintings, along with signs drawn from indigenous pottery...

"Spiritual Awakening" is a 38 x 50 inches, oil on canvas painting by American modernist, female artist Peter Miller. Peter Miller was an artist, a philanthropist, a mystic, and a woman of endless passion for adventure.  "Spiritual Awakening" is a powerful example of her formidable understanding of personal narrative, composition, symbolism, and the artistic layering of color. Paul Gratz writes in the first ever published monograph on the artist: "Miller’s technique was unique. In some of her paintings, she textured the ground to mimic canyon walls. In others, she used sgraffito and applied thin veils of color that she would then skillfully and partially rub off with rags. One small area of the canvas can contain six to eight different colors. The yellows and orange underneath provide a glow of spirituality to many of her canvases. The compositions are deliberate and she had a sophisticated knowledge of color. There are paintings within the painting, layers upon layers." The work is estate stamped #202123" on verso and framed in a natural wood floater frame. The painting has been re-lined, conserved and inspected by conservation specialist, Gratz Gallery & Conservation Studio, Inc. American artist Peter Miller (1913-1996) was born Henrietta Myers in Hanover, Pennsylvania. She began using the name Peter Miller after concluding her studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1934 and her marriage to fellow artist and Academy student Earle Miller in 1935. She felt collectors and critics would take her paintings more seriously if she was identified as a male. In childhood, Henrietta and her best friend Ruth picked fictitious nicknames for themselves, and Henrietta reportedly decided upon the name Peter because she liked the idea that it was derived from the Greek word for “rock” or “stone”. Drawn to being one with the natural world would prove to be an essential inspiration to her creativity throughout her life. Miller is classified as an American Modernist, a reputation she earned for having shown at the prestigious gallery and premiere showcase for Surrealist painting of Julien Levy in New York in the 1940s. Reviewers of her exhibitions noted the unmistakable influence of the artists Joan Miró, whose work she owned and whom she knew, and Arthur Carles, whom she studied with, and sources in Native American culture, which came from sharing time between her home state of Pennsylvania and New Mexico. Peter and her husband Earle considered New Mexico their spiritual home, and in 1935 they built a ranch in Española, about 25 miles north of Santa Fe. Being neighbors of the indigenous people of the Tewa Pueblo, their crafts and religious beliefs fascinated Peter and the reliance of Native Americans upon the land and the animals permeated her work for most of her career. Their belief that all creatures could serve as intermediaries in communication with the spiritual world, inspired Miller to incorporate their symbols in her own paintings, along with signs drawn from indigenous pottery...

"Dancers" is a figurative oil on canvas painting by American modernist and surrealist, female artist Peter Miller. The work is painted in a vibrant color palette. The canvas is estate stamped #202151 on verso. The painting has been conserved and inspected by conservation specialist, Gratz Gallery...

"Singer and Altar" is a 29.5 x 36 inches, oil on canvas painting by American modernist and surrealist, female artist Peter Miller. The work is painted in a vibrant color palette. The...

"Winter 1937/38" is a 25 x 30 inches, oil on canvas painting by American modernist and surrealist, female artist Peter Miller. Peter Miller was an artist, a philanthropist, a mystic, and a woman of endless passion for adventure.  "Winter" is a powerful example of her formidable understanding of artistic exploration, symbolism, and the use of color theory. Paul Gratz writes in the first ever published monograph on the artist: "Miller’s technique was unique. In some of her paintings, she textured the ground to mimic canyon walls. In others, she used sgraffito and applied thin veils of color that she would then skillfully and partially rub off with rags. One small area of the canvas can contain six to eight different colors. The yellows and orange underneath provide a glow of spirituality to many of her canvases. The compositions are deliberate and she had a sophisticated knowledge of color. There are paintings within the painting, layers upon layers." The work is signed, titled, and dated "Peter, Winter 1937/38" and estate stamped #202134 on verso. The painting has been conserved and inspected by conservation specialist, Gratz Gallery...

"Head of a Woman" is a 30.125 x 25 inches, oil on canvas painting by American modernist and surrealist, female artist Peter Miller. The work is signed, titled, and estate stamped #20...

"Shattered" WPA Mid 20th Century Modernism American Scene Surrealism Figurative Estate stamp on the stretcher, verso. Provenance: Estate of the artist. 20 x 24 inches. BIO Leon Bibel continued painting through 1941 and resumed work in both painting and especially wood sculpture by 1960. He worked until his very last day in 1995. His last series of large wood sculptures were modeled on spice boxes, which were miniature buildings...

Frann Spencer Reynolds (1926-2008) "Pink Triangle" c 1950s Oil on canvas 24"x32" float mount white distressed wood frame 26"x34.25" Signed on reverse Go...

Signed "Shaw" lower left Charles Shaw began painting when he was in his late thirties. A 1914 graduate of Yale, Shaw completed a year of architectural studies at Columbia University. In 1927, he began to take a serious interest in art and enrolled in Thomas Hart Benton's class at the Art Students League in New York. He also studied privately with George Luks who became his friend. Prior to this, Shaw enjoyed a successful career as a free-lance writer for The New Yorker, Smart Set, and Vanity Fair, chronicling the life of the affluent theater and café society of the 1920s. Shaw, born into a wealthy New York family, had entrée and moved easily in the social circles of New York, Paris, and London in the late 1920s and 1930s. In addition to his witty and insightful articles, Shaw was a poet, novelist, and journalist. He published several books—a novel entitled Heart in a Hurricane and a collection of interviews with New York literary figures called The Low Down. Once he had dedicated himself to non-traditional painting, Shaw's deft ability with pen made him a potent defender of abstract art. After initial study with Benton and Luks, Shaw continued his artistic education in Paris by visiting museums and galleries. During the first week of a 1932 trip, he surveyed thirteen galleries, and was particularly impressed by the work of Cézanne and Picasso. From 1930 to 1932, Shaw's paintings evolved from a style imitative of Cubism to one inspired by it though simplified and more purely geometric. In 1933, having returned to the United States, he began a series of works entitled the Plastic Polygon that occupied his attention until the end of the decade. The best known of these are drawn from the architectural forms of the New York City skyline and are often painted on shaped canvases that echo the architectural silhouette of the skyscrapers. Within this structural framework, overlapping rectangular forms allude to different heights and widths of adjacent buildings. In them, illusory space is compressed; only the tonal variations of the colors and the subtle manipulation of rectangles evoke a sense of three dimensionality. The Plastic Polygon series, which Shaw described in an article for Plastique, earned him a respectable reputation among the individuals and galleries interested in American abstract art in the 1930s. He had a solo exhibition at Valentine Gallery in 1934, and in 1935, Albert Gallatin organized a show of Shaw's work at the Gallery of Living Art. Shaw traveled to Paris again during the summer of 1935 with Gallatin and George L. K. Morris. There he met John Ferren and Jean Hélion. The following year Gallatin organized an exhibition, called American Concretionists, at the Reinhardt Gallery that included Shaw, Ferren, and Morris, as well as Alexander Calder and Charles Biederman. Shaw became a founding member of the American Abstract Artists and exhibited in the first annual exhibition. His article, "A Word to the Objector," was included in the group's first publication. In it, Shaw chastised "anti-abstractionists" for their prejudice against abstract art. He also, in the article, expressed his profound belief that abstract painting was "an appeal to one's … 'aesthetic emotion' alone … [rather than] to those vastly more familiar emotions, which are a mixture of sentimentality, prettiness, anecdote, and melodrama." During the 1940s Shaw strayed from the strict geometrical format of the polygon paintings. Untitled of 1941 is awhimsical and delicate painting of tents in a nocturnal landscape reminiscent of Paul Klee's work. Here and in Untitled Abstraction of 1943, Shaw softened both his palette and his edges in favor oflyrical balance and subtly modulated color. Throughout his career as an artist, Shaw made montages of antique playing...

1950s abstract oil on canvas painting by Henriette "Yetti" Stolz from 1956. Completed in shades of brown, white, black, and gray. Signed by the artist in the lower right corner. Presented in a vintage frame measuring 42 ¾ x 16 ¾ inches. Image size measures 42 ¼ x 16 ¼ inches. Provenance: Estate of the Artist, Henriette "Yetti" Stolz Painting is in good condition - please contact us for a detailed condition report. About the Artist: Henriette “Yetti” Stolz was born in Serbia in 1935 ( and is still living ). Her family emigrated to Denver, Colorado, in the early 1950s after WWII and she attended East High School before studying art at Colorado College, in Colorado Springs in the mid to late 50s. While there studying she would have been exposed to modernist artists working both at the college ( ie. Mary...

Louisa Lizbeth Chase was born in 1951 to Benjamin and Wilda Stengel Chase in Panama City, Panama, where her father, a West Point graduate, was stationed. The family moved to Pennsylv...

Ernest Tino Trova "Figurative Abstract" 1965 Oil on Canvas approx 17 x 12.5 inches Signed and Dated Lower Right Known for his Falling Man series in abstract figural sculpture, he cr...