La Toilette, Richard Emile Miller

Artwork Overview

La Toilette, circa 1910
Where object was made: United States
Material/technique: canvas; oil
Dimensions:
Canvas/Support (Height x Width x Depth): 80.5 x 100 cm
Canvas/Support (Height x Width x Depth): 31 3/4 x 39 3/8 in
Frame Dimensions (Height x Width x Depth): 40 x 47 1/2 in
Frame Dimensions (Height x Width x Depth): 101.6 x 120.65 cm
Credit line: William Bridges Thayer Memorial
Accession number: 1928.7143
On display: Michaelis Gallery

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Images

Label texts

Exhibition Label: "Corpus," Apr-2012, Sean Barker Richard Miller’s La Toilette shows an elegantly dressed, red-headed woman in a domestic interior who entwines a beaded necklace in the fingers of her left hand and examines her appearance in a small mirror held in the right. The subject of ethereal feminine beauty and an interest in atmospheric effect were typical for Miller, an American who studied in Paris before returning to the United States upon the outbreak of World War I. Indeed, his use of vibrant color applied in dynamic, broken strokes reflects his investment in an Impressionist style. Like many artists who employed Impressionism to depict female beauty, Miller draws a parallel between a woman at her toilette, or in the act of making up her face, to the painter’s art of applying pigment to canvas to represent a scene. Each is artifice. Archive Label: Best known for his figure painting in the conservative tradition, Richard Miller lived in Paris during the post impressionist era and studied at the Académie Julian. Although the school was strictly academic in its approach and subscribed to a literary and sentimental form of naturalism, influences of the avant-garde can be observed in La Toilette. In this painting an unknown lady in her boudoir tends to her last minute adjustments, a popular subject in the early twentieth century. As light emanates from different sources, the woman's body is rendered in a naturalistic sytle, contrasting the flat areas of the dress and walls.

Resources

Audio

Didactic – Art Minute
Didactic – Art Minute
Episode 192. I’m David Cateforis with another Art Minute from the Spencer Museum of Art. The early twentieth century American painter Richard E. Miller began his career in St. Louis. He moved to Paris in his early twenties to study art and continued to travel between the two cities for much of his life, exhibiting paintings on both sides of the Atlantic. Most of Miller’s paintings show the Impressionist formal qualities he assimilated in Paris. The Impressionist style of thick brushstrokes, bright colors, and effort to capture the fleeting quality of light perfectly suited Miller’s images of sun-drenched interiors occupied by one or more idly posed, genteel women. The Spencer’s Miller painting, La Toilette, represents a young woman in an interior space featuring a window, wall coverings, and small domestic items such as a lamp, tables, and mirrors. In several parts of the composition Miller dissolves paint into abstract fields of color. This play between representation and abstraction enlivens an otherwise quiet scene of a woman in the midst of her morning routine. With thanks to Abby Flores for her text, from the Spencer Museum of Art, I’m David Cateforis.