Artist’s
Work Shown Here and Abroad
from
the Sand Springs Leader, April 14, 1985
By
BEVERLY MOORE, LEADER staff writer
 Jack
F. Miller of Sand Springs is realizing an artist’s dream this week
because five of his works are featured in an exhibition of contemporary
American and French artists in Paris.
But,
local residents won't have to go to Paris to see one of Miller's
paintings. All they will
have to do soon is pick up their phone books.
Southwestern
Directory Co. will distribute about 17,000 telephone books to Sand
Springs, Mannford, Prue and Keystone in the last week of April with a
Cover that features Miller’s painting of a North American bald eagle
flying over the Lake Keystone shoreline.
Already
46,000 phone books have been distributed this month with Miller's eagle
on the cover. The first
book released with the cover was in Garvin County which includes Paul's
Valley. The second was
delivered last week in the "Mustang-Yukon areas near Oklahoma City.
The bald-eagle painting was commissioned by the National Audubon
Society’s Tulsa Chapter, and the sale of prints from the original
helped raise more than $100,000 for the purchase of nesting land for
eagles on Lake Keystone.
"A
man I worked with at Public Service Co. of Oklahoma had seen the
Scissor-tailed Flycatchers that I had done and mentioned the Audubon
Society was trying to purchase the eagle roost.
The roost was on a piece of land that was going to be developed. So, I went up there with members of the Audubon Society and
came up with the idea."
One
of Miller's eagle prints ended up in a St. Louis art gallery and caught
the attention of Anheuser-Busch Inc,
The firm subsequently bought 100 prints and included one of them
in its prestigious Clydesdale Collection.
"Most
people think of Clydesdales when they think of Anheuser Busch, but they
also use the eagle and had been looking for a particular type of eagle
for some time," Miller said. "I
was honored when they chose mine."
The
eagle was displayed at the Main Frame Shoppe of Sand Springs when it
caught the attention of Charles Dickerson, Southwestern Directory Co.
sales manager.
Dickerson
said frame shop owner Pat LeMaster suggested using the eagle print for a
phone book cover.
The
eagle, which has brought attention to Miller's works, is not included in
the Paris exhibition, which will last through April 25 and include two
other paintings and three portraits by Miller.
“The
portraits are three different views of one person in a western hat.
Cindy Grinder of Sand Springs was the model.
I enjoy doing portraits because I like working with people,"
Miller said. "Pencil
portraits of people are my favorite.
I've probably done 200 portraits or more."
One
of the paintings exhibited in Paris is of the sunrise coming through
trees with an eagle in the foreground which has just swept across a pond
to pick up a fish. The
other is of two Indian women, one with a baby, sitting and talking.
"I
have priced all of them so it, is possible they will be sold in the
show," Miller said. "I
would love to do prints of the two paintings because I believe they are
marketable."
In
October 1983, Miller's oil painting "God Shed His Grace on
Thee" was featured in "South western Art" magazine's
annual collectors edition. He
has marketed prints of that painting as well as the eagle, he said.
A
Tulsa native, Miller said he has been an artist most of his life, and
began working as a professional artist in 1950 when he entered the U.S.
Air Force. During his 2 1/2
years of active duty and five years in the reserves, Miller worked as an
illustrator. Many of his
artworks were included in "Air Force Times” and one of his
etchings of a Model-T Ford is displayed in the Library of Congress in
Washington, D.C.
Miller
began his art studies at Oklahoma State University after graduating from
Webster High School in Tulsa. He
left school to enter the service and then returned to complete his
bachelor's degree in art with a minor in advertising in 1953.
He
worked as a television artist and in advertising before joining Public
Service Co. of Oklahoma where he was employed for 25 years. He retired from PSO in August.
At
PSO, Miller did architectural drawings of power plants, substations and
office interiors as well as worked in the company's publications and
advertising departments.
Miller
is now devoting full-time to his art and is presently working on a
series of three western paintings, he said. |
