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NACHUMEMILLERTABLE OF CONTENTS UNTITLED #4, 1996 10 UNTITLED #3, 1996 12 UNTITLED, 1997 14 UNTITLED (DIPTYCH), 1997/1998 16 UNTITLED #8, 1997/98 18 UNTITLED #5, 1997/1998 20 UNTITLED, 1998 22 UNTITLED #11, 1996 24 UNTITLED #4, 1996 26 info@benrimon.com benrimon.com 212-628-1600 The Fuller Building 41 East 57th Street, 2nd Floor New York, NY 10022 © 2023, David Benrimon Fine ArtUNTITLED, 1996 28 UNTITLED, 1996 30 UNTITLED #13, 1996 32 UNTITLED, 1996 34 UNTITLED #16, 1996 36 UNTITLED, 1997 38 NIAGARA FALLS, 1997 40 UNTITLED, 1998 42 UNTITLED, 1998 44Nachume Miller (1949–1998) was a German born artist who immigrated to New York City in 1974, where he made a name for himself in the American Modern Art scene. Miller’s parents were both Holocaust survivors. They were separated from each other during World War II; his father was a captain on the front lines of the Russian Army and his mother took refuge with a Christian family in Lithuania. Both eventually escaped the Nazis, re-united in Germany, and fled to Israel. Nachume was born during their voyage, in Frankfurt, Germany, on January 28, 1949. He grew up in the town of Holon, Israel. As a child, Miller excelled in painting. He was inspired by his father, who spent most of his days carving wood sculptures of Cubist human forms. By the age of 16, Miller was painting elaborate surreal landscapes referencing religion, politics, and the history of modern art. These earlier works show similarities to Hieronymus Bosch, Salvador Dalí, and Francisco Goya. He was enlisted in the Israeli Army and fought in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. That same year, he received a scholarship from the Israeli- American Cultural Foundation. He married his girlfriend Ruth and moved to New York to study at the School of Visual Arts. In 1977, he joined the faculty to teach painting and drawing. Over the next two decades, Nachume was prolific in the range of media, styles, and references he incorporated into his art. His paintings and three-dimensional works pay homage to artists throughout history, from the classical Greeks to Rauschenberg. He prioritized craft over concept and was a disciplined painter, never neglecting workmanship in favor of a trend. His work is marked with curiosity, sincerity and intensity. Towards the end of his life, Nachume battled cancer. He passed away at the age of 49, survived by his beloved wife and three sons. Despite what he endured, however, the paintings from these years never demonstrate despair or remorse. Instead, as in all of his work, they maintain a brave optimism that celebrates the vastness and mystery of life. ABOUT THE ARTISTThe expansive “Suns & Illusions” series was created at a critical period of acclaimed artist Nachume Miller’s life. Made whilst battling brain cancer in his late forties, this series of large scale paintings takes a very different tone from his earlier works—emerging from darker, more dystopian themes to a more transcendental, naturalistic perspective, an homage to the natural world. The sun becomes a focal point of this series, with the sun’s rays “dispens[ing] over the earth: through clouds, under the water—beams as they play over the surface of landscapes,” as curator Mara Williams wrote upon the creation of these works. The brightly colored, almost mystical scenes of a natural world are not necessarily representative of what is before us, but perhaps more so, what it is inside us—an inner landscape through the forms of nature. Miller’s reverence for the natural world in these complex and tangled, yet spiritual, scenes is a powerful and poignant motif at the end of this artist’s life on earth. Miller came to prominence in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood—at the time, a rich environment for artists, where vacant lofts no longer wanted by industry became work-home studios. At 29 years old, he became one of the youngest artists to present work at the Guggenheim Museum in Young American Artists: 1978 Exxon National Exhibition. A decade later, The Museum of Modern Art held Miller’s first solo show at a major institution. His work remains in the collection of both museums, amongst others. ABOUT THE SERIES Born in Germany and raised in Holon, Israel, Miller was the son of Holocaust survivors. This history, alongside his father who was a prolific woodworker, had a great influence on the artist. By the age of 16, he was painting elaborate surreal landscapes referencing religion, politics, the art historical canon, and the recent history of modern art. His earlier works show influences from artists such as Hieronymus Bosch, Salvador Dalí, and Francisco de Goya. Later, to old masters like da Vinci, Rembrandt, and Rubens to the landscapes of Turner and more recent stylistic influences, such as Francis Bacon and Robert Rauschenberg. Miller was enlisted in the Israeli Army and fought in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. That same year, he received a scholarship from the Israeli-American Cultural Foundation. He married his girlfriend, Ruth, and moved to New York in 1974 to study at the School of Visual Arts. In 1977, he joined the faculty to teach painting and drawing. Reviewing the MoMA show for Artforum in 1988, art critic Donald Kuspit described Miller’s work as that which “convey[s] the artist’s compulsion.” Kuspit continues: “It is this quality that finally prevents the flux form from betraying itself completely as an invented spectacle. The work becomes hallucinatory—transfixing and full of posthypnotic suggestions.” It’s these hypnotic, trancelike gestures that move through Miller’s canvases with intense force that Cara McCarty, curator of his solo show at MoMA, described as “form in an extreme state of flux.”Next >