Hailing from coastal New Jersey, Arthur K. Miller was set on his road to becoming a portrait painter of legendary professional baseball players by one simple, random act: his father, seeking to protect his son's fair complexion, planted a New York Giants cap on his head at the tender age of four. Combined with the fact that he displayed artistic acumen from the moment he could grip a drawing utensil, Mr. Miller was well on his way.
He won painting awards in high school, and graduated with honors from the noted art institute, the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He followed college by opening up his own graphic design studio there.
Stunned by the sudden and untimely death of a trusted business partner, he left New York City for the quaint environs of the less hectic New England area in the mid-1980's. He settled in Portsmouth, New Hampshire and then began painting ballplayers full-time in 1990, specializing in portraits of players whose careers happened before the advent and modern development of color photography.
Mr. Miller was encouraged early on, most notably, by Ted Spencer, the curator at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Al Rosen, then the general manager of the San Francisco Giants. He began exhibiting and selling his work at prominent galleries and museums, and is now exclusively represented by the National Pastime in Cooperstown, the OK Harris Works of Art Gallery in New York City, the George Krevsky Gallery in San Francisco, and the Art Of The Game internet web site.
His work has appeared in many publications, most notably Yearbooks for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and the Ted Williams Hitters Hall of Fame, as well as publications published by SABR including book jackets and research journals. Mr. Miller also publishes a series of lithographs based on his paintings.
Mr. Miller, a member of the Society for American Baseball Research, currently resides with his two sons, in southern Maine.
One night in late 1999, Mr. Miller had a dream that in 2019 he will be the first artist inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame (in the wing for writers and broadcasters).
It always starts with a dream.
