Tom Miller's painted furniture, now being given a major joint retrospective at the Baltimore Museum of Art and Maryland Art Place, has a lot about it to make you smile. But such an extensive exhibit of Miller's work -- 59 works produced over a 10-year period -- also gives us an opportunity to see how much the work has matured, both in purely visual terms and in terms of what it means.
Even very early pieces, such as an untitled screen of 1984 or the framed wall piece "Mojo Mama" of 1985 (both at the BMA) show Miller with a highly developed sense of decoration and a talent to amuse. The introduction of watermelon slices, or thick-lipped grins such as the animals wear on "Jungle Table" (1987, at MAP), fairly early established his ability to satirize black stereotypes in order to neutralize them.
But since about 1990, his work has become much better visually integrated and at the same time much deeper, taking on themes such as race and personal loss in more meaningful ways.
To look at works even from the late 1980s, such as the 1988 screen "Swannee River" (BMA), along with more recent works such as the 1993 table "Towanda the Mermaid" (BMA) and the 1995 screen "Don't Let the Green Grass Fool You" (BMA), is to see a tremendous difference. The surface of "Swannee" is covered with busy decoration, making it lively but hard to focus on as an entity. The eye tends to jump around rather than take in the whole image.
With the more recent works, there is still plenty of detail to notice, but it adds up to a more coherent image as a whole. The structural members of recent chairs and tables are also made to stand out more clearly; the decoration tends to highlight, rather than camouflage, them.
Miller uses color in a more forceful way now, too. There are larger areas of a single color; the primaries and black and white are used almost exclusively; and in some pieces such as "Twins" (1993, BMA) black plays a leading role.
Miller (who is African-American) also acknowledges that he has begun using people -- blacks and whites -- to a larger extent, where earlier he had used animals as stand-ins. At the same time, he now addresses issues, including racial issues, more directly.
The 1992 cabinet "Josephine" (MAP) is based on Josephine Baker, the black American singer/dancer who became famous in Paris in the 1920s. On the sides of the cabinet, Baker dances with her trademark bananas, but on the top a bird flies from a checkerboard (black and white) into a blue and green sky lighted by an orange sun. This symbolizes Baker's flight from racist America to a place where she could be accepted for her talent.
On two recent screens, "Summer in Baltimore" (1994, MAP) and "Empowerment Zone" (1994, BMA), blacks and whites mingle in the urban landscape, reflecting Miller's hopes. Earlier he had approached the subject somewhat more obliquely. The 1991 chair "Can We Be Friends?" (MAP) is painted with a big smile, all white teeth except for one brown tooth bearing the playing-card symbol for a spade.
Several pieces from the early 1990s have Egyptian titles -- "Nefertiti's Hutch" (1992, BMA), "Walk Like an Egyptian" (1993, BMA), "Radames and Aida: Two Hearts" (1992, MAP) -- reflecting African-Americans' search for roots in the history of Africa. And "Radames and Aida," named for the doomed lovers of the opera "Aida," combines the Egyptian theme with that of the loss of loved ones, which reappears in other pieces: "I'm painting the town red to hide a heart that's blue" (1993, MAP) and "Lockin' up my heart gonna throw away the key" (1993, MAP).
That's not to say that Miller's work has turned pessimistic; there are too many smiles in his pieces for that. But as his work has developed more visual clarity, so its social and emotional themes have tended to be less camouflaged as well. Miller is not a somber artist, but he's a highly serious one.
ART REVIEW
What: "A Tom Miller Retrospective: Painted Furniture"
Where: The Baltimore Museum of Art, Art Museum Drive near Charles and 31st streets.
When: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturdays, Sundays, through April 16.
Admission: $5.50 adults, $3.50 seniors and students, $1.50 ages 7 through 18.
Call: (410) 396-7100.
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What: "A Tom Miller Retrospective: Painted Furniture"
Where: Maryland Art Place, 218 W. Saratoga St.
When: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, through March 18.
Call: (410) 962-8565.