Edgar Miller Legacy

"If it weren’t for Larry, the world wouldn’t know the story and work of Edgar.” We remember the incredible life and career of Larry Zgoda as we endeavor to continue his work of art history and preservation into the future.

Larry Zgoda, a stained-glass artist who helped preserve the legacy of artistic genius Edgar Miller, died at 75. A simple letter dropped in the mail began a relationship that led to Mr. Zgoda working with and helping preserve the legacy of his hero, Edgar Miller.

We remember some of the late Larry Zgoda's incredible artwork, particularly his unique use of glass. Many of these original pieces from the 1980s-2000s exemplify his use of various types of glass, including stained, stainless, beveled, cut-polished jewel, Clovis, crown, and sculptured glass.

One notable piece of his is the memorial stained glass windows at the former Church of the Epiphany in Chicago done with Larry's mentor and collaborator, Edgar Miller. Their windows depict several notable figures, including Bishop Quentin Primo, who was the first African-American bishop elected in the dioceses of Chicago and Delaware. The two windows on the left were designed and painted primarily by Edgar Miller from around 1984-1988, with Zgoda assisting in various ways and glazing the pieces. Due to the former church’s budget constrains, the windows were not all completed at the same time. In fact, the window on the right was completed by Zgoda in 1994, after Miller’s death in ‘93. (Photo Credit: Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago)

Share your memories and read more about Zgoda's life and career at our tribute memorial page: EdgarMiller.org/Larry-Zgoda

A Happy Lunar New Year and Year of the Horse to You!

It's only makes sense this week to showcase some of Miller's artwork created with one of his absolute favorite subjects, the horse! Growing up on the Idaho frontier, Miller would ride his own pony, Winnie, out to see the wild horses of the plains graze under clear skies. Years later he would hand paint dozens of horses in the windows of his Handmade Homes utilizing his characteristic textures and patterns.

Here are just a few of our favorite window pane designs that can be found in Unit 8 at the Carl Street Studios, one of the first of his artist colony apartments. Swipe to see the incredible detail he made for his stunning artistic window displays!

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New from the archive, photo of an original Edgar Miller painting of a children's playground. While there are few details regarding this piece, the painting depicting children at play is believed to be from sometime early in his career. The painting could have been inspired by a schoolyard scene involving his own children Iris Ann, Gisela, and David, who were born in the early 1920s with Edgar’s first wife Dorothy Ann Wood.

This work by Miller showcases a slightly different art style than what many may be accustomed to from the artist. The photo, which has been colorized from an original black and white print, creatively depicts a school recess scene with different groups of children playing games like hopscotch, baseball, and leapfrog. You can almost hear the singing of “Ring Around the Rosie” and “London Bridge is Falling Down”.

The style Miller utilized here has an airy quality reminiscent of illustrated children’s books of the time. Miller employed this type of imagery for a number of illustrative ads and magazine covers he made for department stores and other businesses, such as Marshall Field’s and the Iannelli Studios, during the 1920s and '30s.
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Today from the Edgar Miller Legacy archive, an untitled lithogrpahic print of a landscape, c. 1920. While he is best known for his Handmade Homes and decorative design, Edgar Miller was an artist who could not resist trying new mediums, and made many copper plate engravings in a variety of styles, especially during his teens and twenties. Here we see Miller practicing incredibly intricate linework and cross hatching, albeit with his characteristically rough, swift strokes, to produce a natural scene of dreamy lights and shadows. This highly composee ethereal print is of an unknown landscape and is one of dozens of such prints held in the Edgar Miller Legacy collection, perhaps a study for a book illustration or a limited edition print.

Another large collection of Miller’s lithographic etchings can be found in the archives of the Art Institute of Chicago, donated by Ralph Fletcher Seymour (1876-1966), who was himself a prolific painter, engraver, writer, and independent, local book publisher, who even illustrated for authors such as L. Frank Baum.

In this engraving, Miller seems to somewhat emulate Seymour's personal style and technique for this landscape. While lithography had been used ubiquitously for newspaper, periodical, and book illustration throughout the previous centuries, by the early 1920s when this print was likely made, hand-etched lithographic prints of this sort were becoming a lost art form. Miller was likely also inspired by the lithographic prints of the Pre-Raphaelites and the Ashcan School; and Seymour a collector of local talent who were still interested in practicing a less common print technique, like Miller was.

Though somewhat difficult to decipher, Edgar Miller signed his initials, three lines for an “E” over the two points of an “M” at the bottom right corner of the piece. Swipe to see details!
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In 1939, Edgar Miller decorated an unassuming, unglazed ceramic plate to commemorate the bravery of the Polish people in the face of their invasion by the N***s in the fall of that year. Miller was moved by the reported (albeit apocryphal) accounts of Polish soldiers, despite their inferior technology, standing up against the German’s panzer tanks. 

The image of a cockerel (a young rooster) is a traditional symbol in Polish mythology, representing a guard and protector, and personifying vigilance, resurrection, and bravery. Miller, who was a keen student of history and follower of current events, saw the oncoming Second World War as the inevitable outcome of years of brewing hatred and fascism in Europe and worldwide, and he lamented the war to come. 

In this context, Miller’s simple yet energetic brushstrokes, applied to a humble dish, is one of the artist’s most powerful pieces, symbolizing courage and defiance in the face of injustice and harm. 

Swipe to see details and a small “M” symbol maker’s mark under the cockerel's wing. Learn more about Miller’s many ceramic pieces and more through the Glasner Studio Virtual Tour and the book “Edgar Miller and the Handmade Home”, links in bio.

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Edgar Miller painted thousands of individual panes of stained glass throughout his life, none more extravagant and experimental than those he made for the Handmade Homes in the 1920s and ‘30s. Always looking to iterate on his own work at every opportunity, Miller made sure no two windows shared the exact same design, and he happily experimented with various patterns, textures, styles, and motifs.

These pastel and jewell-toned stained glass pieces, found in the Montgomery Bedroom of the Glasner Studio at the Kogen-Miller Studios, are a notable variation from the darker stained glass colors Miller used in the more public spaces of the homes. The color palette diffuses daytime sunlight and reflects the more domestic nature of the room they decorate, letting the soft, mesmerizing glow fill the room with each sunrise and throughout the day.

You can see and learn more about Edgar Miller’s embedded artwork and stained glass through our Glasner Studio Virtual Tour, or in the beautiful monograph book on the artist, “Edgar Miller at the Handmade Home” – visit us at edgarmiller.org!

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Thanks to his delightful and delicate designs, Edgar Miller had many clients who also worked in various creative trades, as seen in these examples of printmaking work he designed for fashion and costume designer named Gisela Bennati, from the Edgar Miller Legacy archive. During the 1920s, Bennati and Miller were both proprietors of their own small business studios and shops in Chicago's Towertown neighborhood, named for Chicago's iconic Water Tower, and today known as the Magnificent Mile shopping district.

Miller’s dazzling design-work commissioned by Bennati was likely multi-purpose. Printed on wrapping tissue paper, it could be used to hold cards, stationary, and advertisement fliers, and it may also have been used to package jewelry, scarves, and other smaller garments and accessories. Altogether, Miller's work helped maintain a lasting brand impression for Bennati's clientele.

Bennati’s dressmaking establishment was located at 719 N. Rush St., for which Miller also made business cards. The gorgeous, enticing, and subtly detailed stylings by Miller showcase what made him a sought-after, talented illustrator and graphic designer at this point in his career. Bennati was a popular dressmaker and designer, and is even mentioned in a 1923 New York Times article when she had a booth at a fashion pageant at the Lexington Avenue Theatre in New York City.
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Edgar Miller always saw the world in vibrant color.

Even before he worked with the kaleidiscopic color options presented by stained glass, as a teenager Miller's early sketches, doodles, and illustrations incorporated gorgeous details done in watercolor and gouache. This page of painted sketches from the Frank and Josephine Miller Collection was likely made sometime in the 1910s, and depicts beautiful tropical birds and other imagery that Edgar would have seen up close during his time traveling to and living in Australia, from 1913-1915 with his brother Frank and their father James Edgar Sr.

Some of the details are reminiscent of symbolic artwork from the cultures of the Southwest Pacific Islands, as well as Southeast Asian culture. The piece suggests that even as a young teenager, Miller was eager to play with styles, patterns, textures, and colors that he saw in the world.

The depiction of a Chinese dragon and the comedy and tragedy masks perhaps harken to Edgar's visits to one or many of the Chinatowns at major ports which the Millers would have passed through on their travels. The Millers were always a family eager to experience new and exciting cultures and art forms.

Join us next week for a virtual presentation followed by a Q&A with Executive Director Zac Bleicher on the latest edition of Edgar Miller and the Handmade Home. Upcoming Virtual Talk at Glessner House - Wed. 9/10, 7-8pm.

Fifteen years after the initial publication of the seminal monograph by Richard Cahan and Michael Williams, with photographs by Alexander Vertikoff, the book remains the only book completely dedicated to the story of one of Chicago's most intriguing and prolific artists. With an updated and revised third edition recently published through generous support from the Driehaus Foundation, an upcoming virtual talk hosted by The Glessner House will highlight what new discoveries have been made about Miller's life and career in the past decade and a half, and speak to the future of Miller's extant artwork and architectural sites in Chicago, and beyond. Register for the event at The Glessner House website today!

https://www.glessnerhouse.org/events/edgar-miller-revisited