Profile of Melvin Miller, Greensburg, Kansas, Summer, 2000, Larry Schwarm

Artwork Overview

Larry Schwarm, Profile of Melvin Miller, Greensburg, Kansas, Summer, 2000
Larry Schwarm, Profile of Melvin Miller, Greensburg, Kansas, Summer, 2000
Larry Schwarm
Profile of Melvin Miller, Greensburg, Kansas, Summer, 2000
2000
Larry Schwarm, artist
born 1944
Profile of Melvin Miller, Greensburg, Kansas, Summer, 2000, 2000
Where object was made: United States
Material/technique: chromogenic color print (Ektacolor™)
Dimensions:
Mat Dimensions (Height x Width): 42 x 40 in
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 102.23 x 76.2 cm
Credit line: Gift of the artist
Accession number: 2005.0200
Not on display
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Images

Label texts

Exhibition Label:
“Embodiment,” Nov-2005, Kate Meyer
Schwarm notes that the twelve piercings on each of Melvin Miller’s ears refer to the twelve-step program, suggesting that Miller may have replaced one addiction for another. The artist also recalls that when anyone spoke of Miller, they only mentioned his tattoos. Despite the highly visible nature of Miller’s body decoration, the tattoos may have functioned as a way for the sitter to hide.

Exhibitions

Art Into Art: Inspired Responses
2006–2007
Embodiment
Stephen Goddard, curator
2005–2006
Brosseau Center for Learning: Understanding the Understudied: Unusual Japanese Prints in the Spencer Museum of Art
2019
Inked Bodies

Resources

Audio

Didactic – Art Minute
Didactic – Art Minute
Episode 88 Nov-2006, Sharyn Brooks Katzman, Docent I’m David Cateforis with another art minute from the Spencer Museum of Art. A tapestry of names, an Indian princess, an orange tiger - pictures, symbols and words cover the skin of the man in a photograph by Larry Schwarm. Better known for his photographs of prairie-renewing fires in the spring tallgrass of the Flint Hills, Schwarm's summer 2000 photograph of his tattooed neighbor, Melvin Miller, from the small community of Greensburg, Kansas shocks our senses. Miller is no handsome sailor or young Goth teenager flaunting his tattoos. His is the profile and upper torso of a heavy-set, middle aged, bald man with red-rimmed eyes. Twelve earrings pierce the perimeter of his ear as reminders of his twelve-step recovery program, were he tempted to return to drugs and alcohol. Memorializing old friends, fellow prison inmates and dead men, blue and black names stand out within the inked network covering every inch of his aging body like a mask or cloak. The photograph both repels and fascinates, prompting us to come ever closer to this branded body. It’s a stunning example of the photographer's art. With thanks to Sharyn Brooks Katzman for her text, from the Spencer Museum of Art, I’m David Cateforis.