Wright Auction

Edgar Miller was a designer and craftsman, working in a diverse range of mediums and creating expressive “total works of art” in a time when stark modernism prevailed. He blended a traditional Arts and Crafts sensibility with a highly decorative aesthetic, and a progressive spirit. He was involved in the arts community in Chicago for over five decades.

Miller was born in Idaho Falls, which was then still a rugged frontier town. Here, Miller was exposed to pristine nature, an enduring motif in all of his work. He showed an early interest in drawing and art, especially of animals, of which horses were his favorite (Miller received a pony from his father when he was seven-years-old). At nine, Miller created illustrations of his favorite poems by Alfred Tennyson and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; a few years later, he began working as a watercolorist at an architectural firm.