Gallery Notes Volume 24 Number 1

              The Memorial Art Gallery
OF     THE     UNIVERSITY     OF     ROCHESTER
GALLERY NOTES

MR.  R.   T.  MILLER,   JR.  - A  TRIBUTE
Vol. 24, No. 1 - October, 1958
The Gallery records with, very deep sorrow the death in July of R. T. Miller, Jr.
of Scottsville - educator, publisher, philanthropist, gentleman farmer and one
of the Gallery's most generous benefactors.  His death brings to an end a
friendship for the Gallery of many year's standing and a keen, appreciative
interest in all its educational programs, both of which will be sorely missed.
His was a spirited and warm-hearted personality with a courtly graciousness
and friendly understanding that made all of his Gallery visits long remembered
events.  As a special tribute to him, the Gallery has assembled this month a
selection of the rich treasures his gifts have made possible.  Several of the
most important of these, however, which are installed in architectural units in
the Gallery, could not be included and "The Artist's Studio" by Winslow Homer -
Mr. Miller's own favorite among the Miller accessions - will also be missing on
loan to the National Gallery in Washington for its retrospective Homer exhibition.
Mr. Miller's interest in the Gallery's collection as "tools of public seeing"
began in 1934 after an enthusiastic tour of the Gallery's "House of 1834 Exhibition".  Since then he has given funds amounting now to $125,000 for the enrichment of the permanent collections - each gift presented without any conditional
terms except that it be spent soon and that it serve the Gallery's needs.
Through the years some of the most important and significant accessions have been
acquired and the R. T. Miller Fund has literally changed the face of the Gallery
all the way from its collections of early primitive cultures to its contemporary
galleries.  A final bequest of $25,000 in Mr. Miller's will has just been announced by the executors of his estate.
The exhibition in Galleries G and H reveals the wide range of periods and cultures
among the Miller accessions.  It was the Miller Fund that made possible the purchase of the important Medieval and Renaissance objects from the Brummer Sales
in 1949 and the rich store of Classical, Egyptian and Near-Eastern art in the
Frederic Morgan Collection in 1952.  It was the Miller Fund, too, that added the
rare Assyrian relief from the Palace of Ashurnazirpal, the "Tribute Bearer" from
4th Century Persepolis, and the richly polychromed Chinese T'ang Kwanyin.  The
American section is particularly colorful with a collection of 18th and 19th
Century American folk sculpture, Early Empire furniture - much of which is on
long-term loan to the Campbell-Whittlesey House, and Pennsylvania German decorative arts.  Masks and ritual objects from Africa, Pre-Columbian stone carvings
and ceramics, Near-Eastern pottery, 19th Century painting, and contemporary
sculpture - all Miller accessions - again span many centuries and cultures.