Bridge over Two Rivers

c. 1945
Hugh Conde Miller (1911 -1988)
Watercolor on paper, 14 X 19
Signed lower right: H. Miller
Gift of Francine and Thomas Davidson, 93.94

In an ostensibly spontaneous style, clearly influenced by the work of Cézanne, Cubism, and Futurism (all of which he studied and absorbed while working abroad), Hugh Conde Miller reflected the pulsating vitality of New York City after World War II in a jitterbug of lines and brightly colored planes. This lively watercolor represents the Queensboro Bridge (completed in 1909; see plate 85), which spans the East River and Welfare Island (now Roosevelt Island), connecting Manhattan to Queens. The two rivers of the title are both segments of the East River resulting from the division around Welfare Island. Geometric forms and restless brushwork suggesting air, water, sailing vessels, and the institutions that gave the island its name at that period, animate the scene with a rhythmic, almost musical movement.

Miller, born in Louisville, Kentucky, studied at the Cincinnati Art Academy and at the Art Students League in New York with John Stuart Curry, George Grosz, Harry Sternberg, and Will Barnet. In the late 1930s he moved to France where, after the outbreak of World War II, he was stationed with the American armed forces. Miller continued to work abroad through the late 1940s and then returned to New York City, living in Brooklyn. At the same time he rented a studio on Houston Street at the Bowery and taught at the Brooklyn Museum School.¹ Bridge over Two Rivers is characteristic of Miller's best mid-career work: fresh, colorful explorations of New York's dynamic cityscape that seem on the brink of dissolving into abstraction yet retain a powerful underlying structure.

Notes:

  1  Biographical information from Hugh Miller's New York, brochure for exhibition of the same name, January 5 -February 5, 1994, Kraushaar Galleries, New York City.