Richard Edward Miller was born in St. Louis in 1875 and from an early age showed a proclivity toward art and drawing. He studied art at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts and in 1898 earned a scholarship to go to Paris and study at the Academie Julian an with Benjamin Constant and Jean Paul Laurens. He later became a teacher at the Academie Colarossi.
Miller’s Work as an early artist is tonalistic and includes many night scenes of Paris. However, his association with Frederic Frieseke lightened his palette so that the American Impressionists influence is evident in much of his paintings of that period.
While living on Paris, Miller became well known in American art circles with painters such as Guy Rose, Lawton Parker and the aforementioned Frieseke. Together these men painted at Giverny and socialized with Claude Monet. Indeed, Miller’s favorite color combinations are juxtpositions of greens and purples, a reflection of the Monet influences.
Miller won gold medals at the Paris Salons of 1901 and 1904. In 1905, he received a medal at the Liege World’s Fair and a year later he was appointed a Knight of the French Legion of Honor. In 1907, his reputation was further enhanced when his Vielle Hollandaise was purchased by the French government for the Luxembourg Museum.
Miller returned to the United States in 1915 and taught at a number of schools, including the Stickney School in Pasadena, California where he was a member of the California Art Club, dedicated to “plein-air” painting. He later painted and taught in Provincetown, Massachusetts and in Rhode Island. He died in 1943 in St. Augustine, Florida.
