Researched and Presented by Barbara Jaffee, PhD
ABOUT
As an artist-designer, Edgar Miller dedicated his career to working across artistic media, blurring the boundaries of what are understood separately as the applied and the fine arts. In this respect, Miller’s practice dovetails neatly with what was the dominant approach to arts pedagogy at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago [SAIC] when the young artist first arrived there as a student in 1917. The importance of interdisciplinarity at SAIC in the 1920s may be difficult for us to recognize today, not least because of Miller’s somewhat disdainful recollections of his time as a student. This project reconstructs the mainstream of American art and design education and demonstrates the importance of that milieu to Miller’s development.
The much-repeated rallying cry, “The Decorator Works for the World!” was one expression of this ideal in the early twentieth century. Miller’s many collaborations with individuals he met through SAIC, including renovation partner Sol Kogen and innovative Chicago architect Andrew Rebori, and as assistant to the sculptor Alfonso Iannelli, deepened Miller’s conviction that, to be modern, art must serve a useful purpose.
This lecture and essay were presented by Barbara Jaffee, PhD who holds the position of Professor Emerita of Art History at Northern Illinois University, where her writings on art and design have appeared in a number of journals and anthologies.
DePaul Art Museum
November 29th, 2018
Presentation
Essay
