Gerhard Miller; painter who created art museum
Hyfler/Rosner
By AMY RABIDEAU SILVERS
asil...@journalsentinel.com
Last Updated: Oct. 16, 2003
Gerhard C.F. Miller did more than capture the scenes of Door County in
decade upon decade of paintings.
He caught the attention of other artists, who realized that if a clothing
store owner could sell his paintings in Door County, so could they. Miller
was the man who first conceived of the idea for a community arts center,
donating substantial seed money with wife Ruth for what became the Miller
Art Museum in Sturgeon Bay.
"Almost unequivocally, he influenced Charles L. Peterson, Jackson Anderson,
Phil Austin, James Ingwersen, Abe Cohn," said Bonnie Hartmann, museum
director.
"They were encouraged by the fact he was doing well, that this could be a
place where artists could live and do their work," she said.
Miller, long considered the dean of Door County artists, died of natural
causes Aug. 16 at his home in Sturgeon Bay. He continued to paint until just
weeks before his 100th birthday - on April 12, 2003 - when a stroke claimed
his eyesight and he knew that he could no longer paint.
A memorial service is planned for Sunday at the Miller Art Museum.
"It's been wonderful to do this, year after year," Miller said in a 1998
interview with the Door County Advocate. "When people ask me if I've lived
and painted my whole life in Door County, I tell them, 'Not yet.' "
Miller grew up in Sturgeon Bay, the son of immigrant parents from Germany
and Norway. The art happened quite by accident.
"I had polio when I was 11 and since I couldn't walk at first, Grandma
started me on crocheting washcloths," he said. "I got tired of crocheting
and started to draw and paint a little."
His first sale was a still life of flowers, purchased by an
attorney-neighbor's family for something like $2.50.
"The attorney gave it back to Gerhard," Hartmann said. "So we had it in the
retrospective of his work, held in May, June and July, in honor of his 100th
birthday."
No art course was offered at Sturgeon Bay High School when he attended. He
majored in business administration at the University of Wisconsin in
Madison. When his father took ill, he took over the family business, the
Men's Clothing House.
"But I plugged away, read a lot of art material and taught myself," he said
in a 1951 interview. "Then, around 15 years ago, I became interested in
watercolors as a medium. They offered me a challenge because they are so
hard to keep on paper."
Many of his paintings showed the scenes of old Door County, weathered
buildings, trees and boats, stretches of sand and shore. They glow with a
fine texture, gentle light, delicate color.
It was an effect that he liked to call "imaginative realism," or something
real but "not a reproduction."
He learned the ancient technique of egg tempera, a natural way to create
more vibrant, permanent watercolor.
Miller's own life became a study in "imaginative realism," too. He
pragmatically kept working at the family business, also opening other shops.
Mornings became the time for art, not selling suits.
His first wife, Edna, died suddenly in 1956. His art sales had already
introduced him to the woman who would become his second wife, the former
Ruth Norton, an interior decorator from Milwaukee.
They married in 1957, steadfast partners until her death at age 99 in 2001.
"I started out as an amateur artist; all of my training was in business
administration," Miller said in the 1998 Advocate interview. "My wife,
Ruthie, has all the art training. So now I do all the painting, and she
handles the business."
They loved traveling the world, returning with sketches that he would later
translate into paint.
Mostly, though, Miller came home again in his work, "to paint Door County
with a new eye," as he described it.
The idea for what became the Miller Art Museum actually was born in Italy,
where the Millers were vacationing with friends in the early 1970s. It was
there that Miller first suggested that an art center could be developed in
conjunction with Door County's proposed new library.
The Millers made a major donation for the museum, emphasizing that it should
be a year-round asset for the community. It opened in 1975 and has since
been expanded.
Miller also wrote poetry and other books.
In one of his most satisfying experiences, a Miller painting hung at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York for the American Watercolor Society's
200-year retrospective. He was one of only 20 living artists included in the
show.
Survivors include son Dave; daughter Margaret Utzinger; grandchildren; and
great-grandchildren.
Visitation will be from 1 to 3 p.m. Sunday at the Miller Art Museum, 107 S.
4th Ave., Sturgeon Bay. The memorial service will follow at 3 p.m.
In keeping with Miller's wishes, his gallery will be kept open for the next
three summer seasons. Little original art remains, but plans are under way
to offer prints of Miller pieces, previously not released or seen by the
public.
Memorials are suggested to the Miller Art Museum.