Donald Miller

• Gender	Male
  Person ID	I12384	Johnson Hindin Tree
  Last Modified	24 May 2013

  
  

  Father	Unknown Miller
  Mother	Alyse G. McFarland,   b. 1905, PA ,   d. Aft 1920
  Family ID	F5223	Group Sheet

  
  

  Family	Bette Weinbrenner
  Family ID	F5224	Group Sheet

  
  

• Notes

  The following column appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on July 4, 1999: On the Arts: A critic reflects on successes, challenges in the local art scene Sunday, July 04, 1999 By Donald Miller The desire to enlighten readers is a common cause of journalists, critics and historians. Along the way, they may gain enlightenment themselves. I hope I have. Journalism at the Post-Gazette has been good to me for 43 years, one month and 17 days. But it is time to move on. By the time you read this column, I will have left the paper to pursue a new life at our home in the woods. That life will include writing and publishing books, leading PG art tours and serving as a consultant on various art matters. I also expect to write occasional reviews and articles for this paper (so you haven't read the last of me). I am leaving now because, about six years ago, I was rattling off a list of projects I wanted to do someday when my wife, Bette, asked, "When?" Life has not been the same since. When the PG offered a retirement incentive this spring, my "when" had arrived. As a critic, I have some successes and non-successes I would like to share. Neither list is a complete summary -- that would be impossible -- but each remains indelible. The successes were often due to the help of friends. I could not have done it alone, and I am grateful to them. Like all journalists and historians, I love discovery -- a revelation that changes an understanding of what may have seemed obvious. That occurred when I realized from a photograph that John White Alexander had painted himself as the knight in his mural "The Crowning of Labor" at Carnegie Institute. He lowered the helmet visor to cover a receding hairline. And it was a great thrill to hear Andrew Wyeth answer on the phone my question that he may have been influenced by Thomas Eakins' "An Acadian." Wyeth well knew this small painting showing a similarly posed woman when he did "Christina's World." I was pleased after writing several stories to see that the public wanted to save the Old Post Office. And, no kidding, some of us would have chained ourselves to St. Boniface Church, a handsome Romanesque building on East Street, to thwart wreckers if they had come. Then there was the final construction of the County Courthouse courtyard, which followed a column I'd written advocating its completion. Bette and I posed in front of its fountain the day Mayor Sophie married us. Other columns led to restoration of the "Nature" fountain in Schenley Plaza and an end to the city's painting bronze sculptures brown. The 16th Street Bridge remains that way above the south portal, but the painters were called off before getting to the north one. A plea to Ann Wardrop, docent of Carnegie Museum of Art and Frick Art & Historical Center, led to her raising funds for architect/sculptor Sylvester Damianos to replicate the lost stonework of the Col. James Anderson Memorial, North Side. It was a challenge for me to conceptualize the "Point to Port" exhibition at Pitt's University Art Gallery that Bette chaired. In it, Pittsburgh artists brilliantly showed how the Parkway West could have been improved. The concepts were thwarted by the engineers, but the artists made their point: There was, and is, much room for improvement. Criticism from this corner, I think, helped raise standards at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. It was pure nostalgia when I was the first to report the impending razing of Eliza Furnace, where my grandfather and great-grandfather had worked. The story sent Mark Perrott to record Eliza surreptitiously. His splendid black and white photographs became a book. I will not forget how Clarke Thomas, then PG associate editor, joined me in pushing for a history center, which we were pleased to see the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania take on. I was surprised to find Paul Warhola painting Heinz bean cans a few years after brother Andy's death. That story made news around the world, and Paul gained more than 15 minutes of fame. The story I wrote on Kentuck Knob, more than a decade ago, brought the Frank Lloyd Wright house into the public consciousness when it got play across the country via the Associated Press. And I was a part of helping to mount four "Pittsburgh Masters" exhibitions honoring 40 fine artists, several of whom have passed on. On the down side, I have not yet seen repair of the Christopher Magee memorial pool in front of Carnegie Library. It and its granite stele were designed by Henry Bacon, architect of the Lincoln Memorial. Augustus Saint-Gaudens, foremost American 19th-century sculptor, created its bronze plaque. But its pipes go nowhere now. I regret the brief life of the Pittsburgh Council for the Arts, 1969-70. Artists created it, but it was fraught with insecurities. And the loss of Malcolm Parcell's home as an art and history center is a sad blow. Despite advocacy columns -- by me and Patricia Lowry, then of The Pittsburgh Press -- on behalf of the Mark Di Suvero sculpture for the Golden Triangle, the artist never got a fair break. Arts organizations have seldom been as collegial here as I would like. They have not, for example, formed a working arts calendar to prevent the massing of events on crowded dates. But that's enough of that. As for my future, believe me when I say it's busy. At present, I'm concluding a book on photographer Aaronel deRoy Gruber. Artist Ron Donoughe is designing it. Before long, I will collaborate on a book about Tiffany Studio desk sets with George Kemeny, Wilkins Township connoisseur. The years ahead also may bring studies of the Warhola family and perhaps Lafayette. I've long had a wish to convene a seminar on connoisseurship in which art history students and others would consider the quality of objects. Art history today is dominated by texts. All in due time ... Frankly, I hope to be as busy on projects as I have been at the arts desk. I look forward to bringing you reports about what I find in the years ahead. In the meantime, may your love of art be as enlightening and rewarding as mine has been. Donald Miller has just retired as PG art and architecture critic.