When remodelers finally took their plastic off the windows of Hyde Park Square’s Miller Gallery in December, it was with the promise of a lighter, more open environment. Together with a new owner and executive director, they delivered.
A red awning, dark backdrops in the windows, a series of walls and a black sofa in the heart of the space had lent an air of mystery and old-school refinement to Cincinnati’s longest-running gallery. But the heaviness belied the warmth of the founding Miller family, who ran the business from 1960 until a year ago.
New owner Jayne Menke, who also owns the West End design consultancy Artonomy, enlisted architect Jim Stapleton of FRCH for a modern, minimalistic space. The firm last year transformed the Contemporary Art Center’s lobby into a vibrant and welcoming hangout.
Ironically, the uplifting mood in the new Miller comes partly from clouds. A false ceiling and old-fashioned track lighting were removed, and in their place are rectangular white “clouds” concealing LED lights. Gold and white frame stock serves as molding on each suspended panel, turning them into works of art.
Then there are the clouds currently on the
walls of the main gallery for the makeover’s debut. In the old surroundings, a viewer would have felt swallowed by Matthew Metzger’s moody and gray atmospheric paintings. But in this brighter, uncluttered space, the subtle works by the Cincinnati attorney-turned-artist appear to be windows to possibilities. We can project our own dreams onto these swirls, as if gazing at the heavens.
And the sky is the limit for new director David C. Smith. The gallery will continue to maintain a fairly stable roster of 60 artists — about a dozen local. Smith, though, wants to raise Miller’s prominence nationally and internationally in the next three to five years.
Toward that end, the gallery is applying to art fairs in Miami, Fla., New York, Toronto, Chicago and Texas. Its next show is by Spanish painter Eduardo Monteagudo, who lived in Cincinnati for a time.
Smith, who grew up in Anderson Township and graduated from Miami University, left for New York in 2002, feeling that Cincinnati had become a cultural void.
“Nonprofits were pounding their heads against the wall to get people to come to events — not even to give money, just to come,” he says.
Smith spent the past decade as director at Robert Miller Gallery, which has represented Robert Mapplethorpe, Patti Smith and the estate of Diane Arbus. But with more than 300 galleries in Chelsea alone, Smith says New York lost its romance.
He was drawn back to a changed hometown, where businesses support the arts and people in their 20s and 30s are staying.
“We want to focus on that next generation and engage with the community,” says Lauren Johnston, creative marketing director for Miller Gallery and Artonomy.
The gallery added a catering kitchen to host events for 20 to 200 people. Last week’s packed grand-reopening celebration continued at an after-party just off the square at E+O Kitchen. In a bit of targeted marketing, E+O’s dining room features prints by one of the biggest names on Miller’s roster, L.A.-based celebrity photographer Tyler Shields. Smith says the gallery will continue to promote photography and be a FotoFocus venue.
“I have great appreciation of the quality of artwork under the Millers,” Smith says. “It was exceptional across the board. It’s a tradition I hold myself and the gallery to. I want it so people who bought their first pieces in the ’60s through the ’90s can return and find quality here.”
Barbara Miller founded the gallery in 1960 in her basement and was later joined by her husband, Norman. The business moved to Hyde Park in the mid-’60s. Before Norman died in 2000, daughter Laura and her husband, Gary Gleason, increased their involvement. Then Barbara died in 2009. A year ago, the Gleasons sold the gallery to Menke.After 55 years, the new leadership isn’t just flipping a switch, Smith assures. The gallery’s name and its artists are the same; change is coming via modernization. In addition to the renovation, there are smaller gestures such as putting the gallery’s inventory on iPads.
Though his focus is on Miller’s global roster of 60 names, Smith says Cincinnati is too small a community to not support other local galleries and museums. “I want to be part of a bigger picture,” he says. Smith believes there are 60 top artists right here, most of them under-represented.
Smith also draws inspiration from two friends from Miami University who have had an impact locally and nationally: conceptual artist/curator Todd Pavlisko, now teaching at Brandeis University, and Matt Distel, gallery director at The Carnegie. In the 1990s, Distel got his start curating exhibitions in friends’ homes around Cincinnati. Smith said Distel’s example fuels his own passion to design a great show.
Smith’s chance to experiment within a commercial establishment likely will happen in Miller’s side gallery, which is showing new works by Jonathan Queen and studies he did for Carol Ann’s Carousel at Smale Riverfront Park.
While the main space will host 10 traditional exhibitions a year, the small gallery will be a place for “fluid, project-based” presentations, where new artists can be integrated with existing inventory.
Back in the main gallery, Smith stretches his arms across a long marble-top table surrounded by about a dozen chairs as he discusses the Miller’s new openness. The red awning, backdrops and dividers are gone, and a passerby can now see clear to the rear of the gallery. Carpet has been removed in favor of a wood floor. Even the logo has been streamlined with a sans-serif font.
“This is our work area,” Smith says. “I am the director, and I don’t sit in a closed room in the back.”
First-timers generally don’t expect such a welcoming vibe, the refugee from the Big Apple says: “I look forward to young people taking a bite out of it.
The art of Matthew Metzger and Jonathan Queen is on view through Saturday. For more info on MILLER GALLERY, visit millergallery.com.
This article appears in Feb 3-10, 2016.