Marlene E. Miller

"I'm always observing the world around me and painting the image of the underdog. I'm compelled to put before people things that attack their feelings and consciousness about social issues."

Marlene E. Miller has been a maker of puppets, and a producer of prints, drawings, paintings, and sculpture. In her art she confronts powerful issues such as the Holocaust, feminism, and homelessness. She focuses on all those who suffer, including the elderly, and victims of AIDS, war, and racism. She went through a landscape painting phase in the 1980s with a focus on social awareness. Her art reflects her desire to elicit a reaction from the viewer; whether positive or negative.

Says Miller about her Holocaust paper-mache scuplture series, "Because of the subject matter, people are reluctant to say they like it. I tell them it's ok to think it's beautiful. That's what it's supposed to be - it's a work of art. And if it affects someone, that's ok too. That's what art is supposed to do." Her emotionally intense art poses questions about existence and the dehumanization that occured during the Holocaust.

Miller's work can be found in the permanent collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Michener Art Museum. Some of her sculpture was selected for an exhibition on the Holocaust travelling around the United States from 1998 through 2000. In 2012, she had a solo exhibition at the Michener Art Museum, called I Look, I Listen: Works on Paper by Marlene Miller, a set of highly skilled drawings of society's disenfranchised.

Education
Philadelphia Museum College of Art, BFA in Illustration, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1963
Stella Elkins Tyler School of Fine Arts, MFA in Printmaking, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, 1970

Career
Professor Emeritus, Bucks County Community College, Newtown, Pennsylvania, 1998
Professor of Fine Arts, Bucks County Community College, Newtown, Pennsylvania, 1966-1998
Program for Gifted Students, Philadelphia College of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1956-1966
Instructor in Painting, Drawing, and Illustration, Studio School of Art and Design, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1963-1965

Organizations and Affiliations
The Philadelphia Print Club, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Women's Interart Center, New York, New York
Woodmere Art Gallery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Connection to Bucks County
Marlene E. Miller lives in Sellersville and credits "country living" with serving her artistic needs. She taught drawing, painting, printmaking and seminar classes to approximately 5000 aspiring artists during her 32 years at Bucks County Community College, in Newtown, Pennsylvania. Miller joined the college in 1966 as one of only two art teachers.

Exhibitions
I Look, I Listen: Works on Paper by Marlene Miller, James A. Michener Art Museum, Doylestown, PA., 2012
An Evolving Legacy: Twenty Years of Collecting at the James A. Michener Art Museum, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, 2009 - 2010
Witness and Legacy: Contemporary Art About the Holocaust, Travelling exhibit, the Minnesota Museum of American Art, Saint Paul, Minnestoa, 1995, and the Frye Museum, Seattle, Washington, 2002.
Senior Artists Initiative: Selected Works, Woodmere Art Museum, Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania, 2001
Let's Face It! Likeness and Meaning in Portraiture, Artmobile Gallery, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, 2000
Tres Emeriti, Hicks Art Center, Bucks County Community College, Newtown, Pennsylvania, 1998
A Legacy Preserved: The First Decade of Collecting at the Michener Art Museum, Michener Collection, James A. Michener Art Museum, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, 1999
Kristallnacht: Shattered Dresm; Lost Reflections, Borowsky Gallery, Philadlephia, Pennsylvania, 1995
Images of Courage and Compassion: Contemporary Artists Confront the Genocide of European Jews, Millersville University, Millersville, Pennsylvania, 1991
Prints and Drawings, Philadelphia Bicentennial Women's Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1976
Prints and Drawings, University of Massachusetts: Herter Gallery, Amherst, Massachusetts, 1975
Prints, Drawings, and Paintings, LaSalle College, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1970
Prints, Drawings, and Paintings, Comfort Gallery, Haverford College, Haverford, Pennsylvania

Juried Exhibitions
Twentieth Annual Bucks County Sculpture Exhibition, James A. Michener Art Museum, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, 1997
And the Women Danced: Jewish Women's Spiritual Leadership, Borowsky Gallery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1993
Bucks County Biennial I, James A. Michener Art Museum, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, 1992
Various exhibitions, Prints and Drawings, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1961-1970
Various exhibitions, Prints and Drawings, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1959-1969

Awards
W.H. Ely Bequest Travel Fellowship, Philadelphia, Museum School of Art, 1956