About Steven R. Miller
Miller's works have been exhibited throughout the United States in more than 75 one-man shows and 40 juried competitions. His creations are part of prominent art collections, including those of NationsBank, Hilton, Marriott Corp., PepsiCo, Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans, Roberta Peters, Mitch Kapor, Avery Rockefeller III and former S.C. Gov. Richard Riley.
Nicolai Cikovsky, curator of American Art at the National Gallery of Art, called Miller's award-winning painting Pencil Cup Revisited "a work of tremendous scale ... splendid sense of design and coloration which carries marvelously; it recalls Matisse." Miller's first serigraph, California Flower Fields, received awards from curators at the Whitney Museum of American Art. From 120 statewide entries, Miller won the prestigious Spoleto USA dance poster competition.
The Washington Duke Inn made an inspired choice in commissioning artist Steven R. Miller to paint four images. A 1973 Duke graduate, Miller is intimately familiar with the Duke landmarks depicted: the Inn, its golf course, the Sarah P. Duke Gardens and Duke Chapel.
While these paintings resemble actual photographs, they are not. Miller calls his style Clarified Realism, through which "I'm punching up the contrast and making the scene very bold." He has mastered gouache, a challenging medium involving opaque watercolor. Unlike traditional watercolorists, Miller paints on dry rag paper and uses two coats of paint to obtain clearly defined details and saturated colors.
His paintings also are known for hidden images of hearts, which subtly symbolize his self-fashioned Art With Hearts. "It's just something I enjoy doing and makes viewers look at the works more closely. It's fun."
Miller creations have appeared on national television, too. Zinnias in Yellow Vase was offered as a prize on Wheel of Fortune, three serigraphs were featured on the soap opera Santa Barbara, and Miller painted a mural on The Party Machine starring Arsenio Hall. His work has appeared on numerous magazine covers, including Yankee, The Sun, and Rambler.
