ABOUT

Edgar Miller (1899-1993) was a self-taught and apprenticeship trained artist and master craftsman—a creative virtuoso of the modern era—who applied his skills to a multitude of projects in art, design and architecture. This talk will introduce us to Miller’s wide range of artistic accomplishments, from painting to sculpture to stained glass, as well as his unique style of artistic placemaking.

Arts Club of Chicago, 201 E. Ontario St.
Saturday, February 25th, 2:00pm

PRESENTERS

Wendy Greenhouse, PhD

(Art Historian) 

Wendy Greenhouse is an independent art historian who studies American art, with a focus on art in Chicago before the mid-20th century. She has a longstanding interest in artists’ relationship with the past and a more recent fascination with artistic responses to urbanism. Currently, she is working on Chicago: The City As Muse, a book and accompanying exhibition examining the artistic interpretation, in painting, drawing, and printmaking, of Chicago’s built environment and social spaces since the Great Fire.

Rolf Achilles

(Art Historian)

Rolf Achilles is an independent art historian. He publishes and lectures frequently on architecture and the decorative arts in the US and abroad. He is particularly concerned with those areas of culture that were mass-produced and common during the later 19th and much of the 20th century. He is currently researching furniture of William LeBaron Jenney and interiors of August Fiedler.

Lisa Stone  

(Curator, Roger Brown Study Collection)

Lisa Stone is curator of the Roger Brown Study Collection and Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism, both at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Working with faculty, students, and colleagues, her project concerns re-writing the rules of house museum management to allow the histories of a 19th century building and a 20th century artist perform fully in the 21st century, and to enact historic preservation as a creative activity. 

Zac Bleicher

(Executive Director, Edgar Miller Legacy)

Zac Bleicher founded Edgar Miller Legacy in 2014 with the mission to preserve the late 20th century artist Edgar Miller’s artistic and architectural works; to advance the historical research of the artist’s accomplishments; and to build programs for the public to access and learn from Miller’s inspirational aesthetic. Bleicher’s interest in Miller and his art began through his late uncle, Mark Mamolen, a preservationist who helped rehabilitate Miller’s architectural masterpieces in Chicago. As part of his role within Edgar Miller Legacy, Bleicher continues to manage the growing archive of Miller’s work and history and to find new ways to tell Miller’s story. Bleicher has a BA in American History, Art History, and Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA from the University of Illinois-Chicago.

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Chicago's Forgotten Renaissance Man

Edgar Miller Legacy—with the support of The Terra Foundation—organized a series of lectures reintroducing Chicago to its forgotten artistic master, Edgar Miller. Visit the digital archive of interactive media, images, and other lecture materials.