Studio: international art (87.1924)

MR. AND MRS. A. E. HASWELL MILLER

MR. AND MRS. A. E. HASWELL
MILLER 0 0 0 0 0

IT is perhaps rare to find in the art of
husband and wife such a close affinity of
purpose and outlook as is observable in the
work of Mr. and Mrs. A. E. Haswell
Miller. In choice of medium, technique,
colour and often subject, they are at one.
It is almost unique, too, that their early
art school attainments and training should
also have been uncommonly alike, both
gaining various travelling scholarships, and
ultimately visiting together France, Spain,
Italy, Germany and Austria. The art in-
fluences of the latter country are strongly
traceable throughout many of their dis-
tinctly decorative paintings, as well as in
their more documentary sketches and
landscapes. For some considerable time
before 1914 Mr. Miller was assistant to
Professor Baltus in the technique of paint-
ing in the Glasgow School of Art. Baltus
was pre-eminently a master of tempera,
and it is in that medium that Mr. and Mrs.
Miller have executed some of their most
notable works. In water - colour, too,
both can show some excellent drawings,
266

“OLD HOUSES, MALCESINE.” CHALK
AND TINTED DRAWING BY
JOSEPHINE HASWELL MILLER

especially vital being those which proclaim
the effect of time and impulse of thought,
having necessitated a rapidity of draughts-
manship and spontaneity. At the recent
election of a few out of the many applicants
for membership of the Royal Scottish
Society of Painters in Water Colours, Mr.
Miller was one of the fortunate few, and
there is no doubt had his wife's work been
included amongst the exhibition of appli-
cants, she, too, would have shared the
honour with him. At present both artists
occupy part of their time as instructors on
the staff of the Glasgow School of Art;
Mr. Miller in the section devoted to draw-
ing and painting and his wife as head of
the etching department combined with
lithography, both being mediums to
which she has in recent years devoted
much of her attention. In them she has
produced some distinctly personal prints,
some of which may be seen in The Studio
at a future date. The few accompanying
illustrations of examples of their water-
colour, chalk and tinted drawings must,
however, at the present time suffice as an
introduction to that branch of the art of
these two accomplished artists. E. A. T.