Frederick A. Miller collection

Frederick Anson Miller was a nationally renowned silversmith. His objects are in the collections of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian, Art Institute of Chicago, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Best known for his distinctive style of hollowware characterized by its asymmetrical form, he was also an accomplished jeweler and teacher.

A self-taught silversmith he began his career during his formative years, having his mother’s souvenir silver spoons melted down (with her permission) to create jewelry. While attending Western Reserve University and later the Cleveland Institute of Art, he took minimal courses in metalworking believing they could not offer him anything he did not already know. At CIA he met his friend and life-long companion John Paul Miller who would later become a recognized goldsmith. Frederick Miller received a BS in Art Education from WRU, and a degree in Industrial Design from CIA. He applied to Potter and Mellen upon graduating, but with no position open, started teaching in his native Akron, Ohio.

Miller joined the Army in 1941 and served in the Signal Corps for nearly five years. Upon leaving the Army, Potter and Mellen offered Miller a position. After attending a six week apprenticeship at Stone Associates in Gardner, Massachusetts, he officially started work at the high-end retailer. A year later Miller began teaching at his alma mater, CIA. After nearly twenty years of working for Potter and Mellen, Miller along with John T. (Jack) Schlundt, purchased the company.

A critical point of Miller’s career was the second Silversmithing Workshop Conference held in August 1948. Sponsored by the Craft Service Department of the precious metal company Handy & Harman, the month-long conference influenced Miller’s style for decades to come. Baron Erik Fleming, court silversmith to the King of Sweden, taught the attendees the raising or stretching method. This method involved hammering the center of a thick silver disk causing the metal to thin and the edges to rise. The Baron’s tutelage inspired Miller to become a pioneer in the free form style.

Few places to exhibit contemporary silver existed at the beginning of Miller’s career. Notable exceptions were the Cleveland Museum of Art’s May Show and Wichita Art Association’s National Decorative Arts and Ceramics Exhibition. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s Miller’s work was mostly confined to juried exhibitions. As his reputation grew, museums and institutes sought his pieces for comprehensive exhibitions. Miller had two solo exhibitions, "Holloware by Frederick A. Miller" at the Little Gallery of the Museum of Contemporary Crafts, New York in 1961, and "Featured Object" at the National Museum of American Art in 1989. Locally, Miller displayed over 200 objects in the May Show over the course of thirty years

In the late 1970s, Miller divested his shares in Potter and Mellen and retired from teaching at the Cleveland Institute of Art. He continued to make objects at the home studio he shared with John Paul Miller until his death in 2000.