Wallpaper & Fabric Prints

Commercial graphic design took off as a major industry of the modern era during Edgar Miller’s early career, all propelled by a continuously globalizing world.  However, in the Midwest during the Great Depression, when artists were actively looking for work as independent contractors, creative professionals of all stripes suddenly had a newfound opportunity to meet and network with fellow community members during public works collaborations.  Miller became involved in a local Public Works of Art Project office, and connections made during this time would evolve into a number of commercial projects that would often bear fruit decades later.  

Miller was welcomed into a number of design and art groups that cropped up at the time, notably the 27 Chicago Designers, a group started in 1937 by John Averill and Gustav Rehberger, prominent design talents on the Chicago scene, looking to publish and promote the works of dozens of talented graphic artists and illustrators.  Miller was among their founding members.  These artists produced design work for hundreds of local brands, continuing to push the boundaries of a modern design language for a national and international audience.

Miller went on to make even more wide-ranging connections in the growing field of graphic design over the decades.  One of his first real passions, and one that was of particular fondness to members of his family—batik and fabric print work—evolved into a brief stint as a wallpaper designer.  Miller’s wife, née Dale Holcomb, had worked with Edgar to translate many of his designs into beautiful and intricate fabric prints.  After seeing his incredible mural work at places like The Normandy House and Chicago’s Tavern Club, and then some of the personal fabric design work Miller was regularly dabbling with at home, wallpaper company owners Emile Bassett and George Vollum hired Miller to produce a limited series called the Tower Court Collection in the late 1940s.  Bassett & Vollum had perfected a form of screen printing that highly suited Miller’s love of layered printmaking, and his illustrative and storytelling sensibilities.  Bassett & Vollum’s wallpapers decorated backgrounds for tens of thousands of households across the nation from the 1940s through the 1960s. The company still operates today, based in Davenport, Iowa, and still faithfully reproduces selections by Edgar Miller (all of which are on display in the exhibition).  

Whether it was mass-produced designs like with his wallpapers, or more personalized one-off fabric prints, Miller had developed a quintessential style throughout the 1920s through 1950s.  Miller’s prolific career as a graphic designer continued, and were often done in conjunction with many of his larger scale architectural and interior design projects.  His mastery of so many different forms of graphic design allowed him to translate design elements and techniques across media, creating a unique language that still seems timeless and contemporary today.

Wallpapers & Fabric Prints

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