120: H.C. WESTERMANN, Collection of correspondence to John F. Miller < Elevated: Art Via Chicago, 23 February 2024 < Auctions

Dear John

Letters from H.C. Westermann to John F. Miller

by Keith Bringe, Rare Nest Gallery

John F. Miller, c. 1957; H.C. Westermann, c. 1960

Several tangible archives illuminate the long friendship between H.C. Westermann and John F. Miller. This cache of letters postmarked from 1957 to 1969 demonstrate a close and supportive relationship.

Born five years apart—Westermann in 1922, Los Angeles, and Miller in 1927 in rural Princeton, IL—both artists came from middle-class families. Both served in the military—Westermann in the South Pacific in World War II and Miller in Korea. Miller served mostly as a sign painter and graphic artist and Westermann as a machine-gunner in active duty.

They landed together as G.I. Bill students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 1947 for a few years. Both participated to varying degrees in artistic communities, groups, and branded schools. Miller’s sons have reflected that John was “not a hustler” as regards his own work, but recent archival material contradicts this idea as regards his active development of a community for contemporary artists and a Museum for Contemporary Art in Chicago.

Exhibition poster designed by Miller to promote H.C. Westermann and Thomas Kapsalis at Gallery 414 in 1957

According to Barbara Haskell's 1978 essay for Westermann’s breakthrough exhibition at the Whitney Museum, H.C.’s first major presentation of sculpture occurred in 1952 at the 414 Gallery—which was founded and managed by Miller. A poster designed and printed for a joint show of Westermann and Thomas Kapsalis in 1957 illustrates Miller’s ability to interpret Westermann's sculptures into graphic art.

In 1968, Miller produced one sculptural work that echoes some of Westermann’s material and formal concerns—a bare plywood and leather rope stylized "Beard" with handlebar mustache surmounting a box form.

A drawing from the present lot created during Westermann’s time in Progresso, Mexico in 1958

Within the group of correspondence presented here, the most striking drawing by Westermann was produced on the beach near the village of Progresso, Mexico in 1958. Perhaps, following Westermann’s enthusiastic recommendation, Miller went on to live in Mexico from 1970–1971.

Death Ship of No Port by H.C. Westermann, 1957 now in the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago

Finally, in 1995—in an act of extraordinary generosity, Miller donated an important early sculpture by Westermann to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. Death Ship of No Port, 1957 is a seminal work, given in friendship and now available for the public to enjoy.