Book Illustrations & Maps
Edgar Miller produced illustration work throughout his career, both casually and for professional projects. Miller sketched every day of his life, so translating everyday portraits, still lifes, landscapes, motifs, and even doodles into more cohesive pieces was always an enjoyable project for him. What unifies his illustrated work is his expert ability to convey a sense of story in each image. Whether the finished work was a pictorial map, an informational graphic, or a brief action scene in the margins, Miller’s illustrations always tell a tale. He was commissioned to illustrate a number of children’s, young adult, and genre book series from the 1920s through the 1960s.
Miller also lent his hand to pictorial mapmaking with a commercial orientation. On display in the exhibition are two maps, one for the then-new Brookfield Zoo, and another produced for Marshall Field’s and WGN Radio accompanying a radio show following the Graf Zeppelin’s first trip around the world. Mapmaking is still very much an experiential art form for the viewer: it is a medium that is both entertaining and artistic, combining infographics with comic book drawing. As opposed to the more minimalistic graphic design of ad posters that was in vogue in the Interwar Period, Miller’s pictorial maps take an opposite approach to impart as much information as possible. As a viewer looking through these examples of maps by Miller, keep an eye out for his use of color, typography, and collage-like elements, particularly around the illustration’s margins.
Several companies made an outsized effort to develop the graphic design industry during the twentieth century. The Container Corporation of America (CCA), a Chicago-based packaging firm, was one such company. CCA was founded and run by industrialist Walter Paepcke, starting in 1926. Paepcke and his wife Elizabeth were known for their commendable patronage of the arts, and in particular their interest in cutting-edge modern graphic design. They founded an organization called the Aspen Institute, in Aspen, Colorado, that became a think tank for promoting Enlightenment ideals and modern artistry, pushing a marriage of the two together. Miller was commissioned by CCA to produce the illustration and graphic design work for the company’s Atlas of the World, in 1936; and he also illustrated a book published by the company titled Paper, Wasps and Packages, a history of paper goods and manufacturing, in 1937. His work for CCA dovetailed nicely with the vision of these patrons for the future of the graphic design industry: a professional landscape that supported artists and incorporated modern artistry into educational design projects. With his outstanding ability to tell stories within even a small area of the page, Miller exemplified this ideal.
Book Illustrations & Maps
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