catalog text
"TREES BY A POOL" LANDSCAPE PAINTING BY RALPH DAVISON MILLER (AMERICAN, 1858-1945)
Oil on panel, signed lower right "Ralph Davison Miller"
Item # 905UPZ12K
A fine and rare landscape painting by early California artist Ralph Davison Miller. With a chaotic heavy impasto in his brush stroke, Miller brings to life a glade with tall trees before a pool of water. The scene is enlivened with the golden glow of evening light across the grasses and trunks.
Ralph Davison Miller was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on September 7, 1858 to James Ross Miller, a hemp merchant. He grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, where he actively painted with a specialization in still-lifes. With the exception of receiving some criticism, advice and encouragement from George Caleb Bingham, he remained a self-taught artist without any formal education.
Despite this, he would go on to exhibit and market his works through some of California's most prominent galleries, including exhibitions at: Kanst Gallery, Los Angeles, 1909; Steckel Gallery, Los Angeles, 1910; Blanchard Gallery, Los Angeles, 1911; Wilshire Gallery, Los Angeles, 1927.
He moved to New Mexico in the 1880s and eventually settled in Los Angeles, California in 1893. Other than a brief time during the mid-1920s where he lived on the Monterey Peninsula, he would spend his entire life as a resident of Los Angeles. He traveled extensively throughout coastal California, painting coastal scenes and landscapes as far north as Mendocino. And he produced a great number of desert and mountain landscapes during his travels through Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. He passed away on December 14, 1945 in Los Angeles.
His works are held in the Colorado University Art Museum, the Harwood Museum of Art, the California Historical Society, the Santa Fe Railway Collection and the Santa Barbara Historical Society.
Measurements: 23" H x 34" W [panel]; 30 1/4" H x 41 1/4" W [frame]
Condition Report:
Trace craquelure throughout the surface. Surface grime and yellowing to varnish, would benefit from being cleaned. Contemporary frame with wear and separation in one corner joint.