Godfrey Clive Miller was born at Wellington New Zealand on 20 August 1893, the second son of a Scots-born bank accountant, Thomas Tripney Miller and his wife, Isabella Duthie. In 1896, just after the birth of his sister Mera, his mother died of tuberculosis. Two years later his father married his mother’s older sister, Eliza, and four more children followed. As his father was a manager of the Bank of Australasia, the family spent some years based at different towns throughout New Zealand. In 1908 they finally settled in Dunedin in the South Island, where Miller completed his high school education at Otago Boys High. In 1910 he began day classes at Dunedin Technical School and evening classes at Otago School of Art and Design so that he could train as an architect. In about 1911 he was apprenticed as a draughtsman with Salmond and Vanes, Dunedin, at at the same time also worked as a carpenter on city buildings. In 1914 he was admitted as an Associate Member of the New Zealand Institute of Architects, and the same year took extra painting classes with Alfred Henry O’Keefe.
On 20 October 1914 Miller enlisted as an Army private in the Divisional Signal Co. New Zealand Engineers. He was promoted to Sergeant by the time the First New Zealand Expeditionary Force sailed for Egypt on 14 December.
The promotion did not last. After training at Egypt, he landed at Gallipoli where he served as a flag signaller and was promoted again to Lance-Corporal. He was wounded on 7 August 1915 and evacuated to Egypt with a wound to his arm that left him with musculospinal nerve palsy and severe shell-shock. On September 25 he joined the hospital ship Willochra to recuperate at Rotorua in New Zealand. He was discharged from the Army with a pension as medically unfit on 30 May 1916.
Back in Dunedin he broke off a pre-war engagement to be married and returned to learning painting. He also began his long friendship with the English civil engineer Arthur Fenwick.
In 1918, after winning second prize for a head study in a student competition, he moved to Melbourne and enrolled in W.B. McInnes’ antique drawing class at the National Gallery School. The following year he travelled to the Philippines, Hong Kong, Japan and China, and landed again in Sydney on 13 September. He returned to Melbourne, and started to read widely into symbolist and romantic literature. He later re-enrolled in the National Gallery School.
Miller’s father’s failing health concerned him and he returned to New Zealand, and later visited him in an asylum in Sydney. From between 1926 and 1928 he was helping to nurse his father, most likely in Sydney. He may have attended some classes at the Sydney Art School.
On 30 August 1939 he left Australia on the Oronsay, and visited Paris on his way to London where he enrolled in the Slade School. He befriended the head of the school, Sir Henry Tonks, who arranged for him to study in the London University of Tropical Medicine during the school break.
Miller was in Melbourne from 1932 to 1933, but then returned to London, after visiting New Zealand again. Over the following years he was based in London, but undertook extensive travel in Switzerland (with Arthur Fenwick), Italy, Paris, Spain, Greece, Turkey, Sweden, Denmark and Scotland, where he met relatives. His interest in philosophical questions was changing the shape of his art, as he attended John MacMurray’s philosophy seminars at the London University College as well as public lectures by Albert Schweizer. In 1936 he saw the International Exhibition of Chinese Art, and the International Surrealist Exhibition, both of which had a significant impact on him. The same year he travelled three times to Paris to see the Cézanne retrospective.
On 22 October 1938 Miller left Europe for New Zealand and Australia, and by August 1939 he was living in Sydney. The following year brother Lewis introduced him to the Sydney St John Group – Anthroposophical Society and became involved in all their activities, including weekend festivals at Castlecrag. He also began to make excursions to Central Australia, as well as visits to New Zealand.
Miller made friends with Sydney artists and by the mid 1940s he was involved in the loose grouping of artists who were teaching at East Sydney Technical College. He may have begun teaching there in 1945, but is not formally listed as being a part-time teacher until 1948. He taught still life and life painting, and life drawing; and remained on the staff for the rest of his life. Miller was an inspirational and gentle teacher, able to show how the most complex figure could be reduced to tough definitive lines.
At the end of the War he travelled to Europe to study a three month colour course at the Anthroposophy centre, the Goetheanum, in Switzerland – and also visited other European cities.
In January 1951, on a visit to New Zealand, he befriended the young New Zealand artist John Henshaw, a friendship that would last for life. By now Miller was becoming more confident about his work and was persuaded to exhibit with the Sydney Group at Macquarie Galleries in 1952, the first public showing of his mature style. Paul Haefliger, the influential art critic of the Sydney Morning Herald became a staunch supporter, and in 1953 his work was included in Twelve Australian Artists, a touring exhibition organised by the Arts Council of Great Britain at the New Burlington Galleries, London.
In March 1954 he bought a house in Sutherland Street Paddington, which he named El-Kahs-Mar (Well built, good idea). In other changes he resigned from the Anthroposophical Society and became involved with the Krishnamurti movement. As international travel increased his teaching load reduced. In 1961 Miller’s Triptych with Flowers was included in the Whitechapel Exhibition of Recent Australian Painting, and it was purchased by the Tate Gallery. However his increasing reputation as an artist coincided with his development of congestive heart disease. He was found dead in his home on 10 May 1964.
- Writers:
-
Joanna Mendelssohn
James McArdle
- Date written:
- 2012
- Last updated:
- 2023
