The University of Richmond Museums presents Keeping Art Alive: Prints and Drawings by Kenneth Hayes Miller and His Students, on view from October 5, 2012, to April 7, 2013, in the Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art and the Print Study Center. Kenneth Hayes Miller (American, 1876-1952) was a painter and printmaker who taught at the New York School of Art from 1899 to 1911 and at the Art Students League of New York from 1911 until 1951. The exhibition examines how Hayes Miller’s teachings influenced his students and how each of those artists later developed their own personal styles. Featured in the exhibition alongside the works of their instructor are prints and drawings by Peggy Bacon (American, 1895-1987), George Bellows (American, 1882-1925), Isabel Bishop (American, 1902-1988), Alexander Calder (American, 1898-1976), Minna Citron (American, 1896-1991), Rockwell Kent (American, 1882-1971), Yasuo Kuniyoshi (American, born Japan, 1893-1953), Reginald Marsh (American, born France, 1898-1954), Louise Nevelson (American, born Russia, 1899-1988), and George Tooker (American, 1920-2011).
Other works featured in the exhibition include the etching Matinale (1931) by Peggy Bacon, a student of Hayes Miller at the Art Students League from 1915 to 1920, which depicts a view of the bustle of East Fifteenth Street from the artist’s apartment window in Manhattan. George Bellows, a student in Hayes Miller’s classes at the New York School of Art from 1904 to 1906, is represented by such prints as Morning (Nude on the Bed, Second Stone), (1921), which reveals how Bellows was inspired by Miller’s interest in classical nudes. The lithograph Resting (1929) by Rockwell Kent, a student of Miller at the New York School of Art from 1902 to 1904, demonstrates Kent’s interest in presenting the figure in a contemporary setting.
The exhibition was organized by the University of Richmond Museums and curated by Richard Waller, Executive Director, University Museums, with Haley Jones, ’14, leadership studies major, University of Richmond, and 2012 Harnett Summer Research Fellow, University Museums.