Miller showed artistic ability at an early age, and his affluent parents supported his training. His father was a grocer. Under the tutelage of Thomas Sully, a prominent Philadelphia painter who taught Miller in Baltimore, Miller attracted the attention of local patrons Robert Gilmor and Johns Hopkins. He did portraits of Johns Hopkins and his mother during the time he studied under Sully that hang today in the campus president's office at Johns Hopkins University. Gilmor and Hopkins sponsored Miller's travel to Paris and Rome to study European art. Miller was influenced by the work and style of Delacroix for his sketchy technique, of Turner for his light effects and of Thomas Lawrence, for his handling of portraits. He copied paintings exhibited in the Louvre and the Vatican by many great artists such as Raphael, Rembrandt and Turner. Scholars have suggested that Miller traveled to Switzerland as well, since his notebooks include sketches of lake scenes there that are similar stylistically to his later work.

Upon return from Europe, Miller opened a studio in Baltimore, only to leave for New Orleans in 1837. Not long after, he met Scottish explorer Captain William Drummond Stewart, who he traveled with from along the Platte and Missouri rivers near St. Louis to the end of the Oregon Trail as the documenting artist of an expedition. Miller sketched scenes of landmarks throughout the journey. From the sketches, he produced oil paintings and watercolors that were sent to New York and Baltimore and often represented the first time that the East Coast citizens had seen the lands unknown to them to the West.

Of particular appeal among the public in the artist's hometown were the scenes of wildlife, such as grizzly bears and buffalo, and images of Native Americans, in paticular The Lost Greenhorn and The Trapper's Bride. Other subject matter handled by Miller was that of several sites of national importance, including that of Devil's Gate and Fort Laramie in Wyoming.

After the expedition, Miller settled in Baltimore, advertising his artistic services as a portrait painter, and left for Europe once again in 1840, where he spent time in London, where he was exposed to George Catlin's (1796-1872) work. Scholars have suggested that Miller may have copied Catlin's practice of duplicating watercolors with Indians as subject. Art historians have often compared Catlin and Miller for their similar subject matter.

The first major acquisition of William T. Walters was a series of 200 watercolors illustrating the entire cycle of the journey, which Miller produced in Baltimore after his return during the years 1858 and 1860. Miller charged Walters $12 apiece for the pictures. In 1858, William T. Walters also bought three oil paintings by the Baltimore artist. The Walters Art Gallery (now the Museum) was the first art insitution to dedicate an entire gallery to Miller.

In 1935, a large collection of 100 unmounted watercolor sketches of Miller's were in the Peale Museum in Baltimore. In his Baltimore studio, Miller painted many Indian scenes based on his sketches. Maryland subject matter includes a non-commissioned scrapbook containing 100 sketches in pen and wash, that depict African-American life in Baltimore in the mid-19th Century, some of which appear to indicate that Miller was a Union sympathizer. Some scholars, including former Walters Art Gallery Director Richard R. Randall, contend that Miller, "in spite of his ability with landscape, seems to have preferred to think of himself professionally as a portrait painter."
Taught By: Thomas Sully, Baltimore, 1831 and 1832.
Art-related Employment: painter; draughtsman; watercolorist
Other Employment: costume designer
Selected References: Dean, Mary A. [et al.] 350 Years of Art & Architecture in Maryland (College Park : Art Gallery, and Gallery of the School of Architecture, University of Maryland), 1984.
Randall, Richard R. "A gallery for Alfred Jacob Miller," Magazine Antiques, v. 106:5, Nov. 1974), 836-843.
Ross, Marvin Chauncey. The West of Alfred Jacob Miller, 1837 (Norman, Oklahoma: The University of Oklahoma Press), 1951.
Other Publications: Johnston, William R. "American Paintings in the Walters Art Gallery," Magazine Antiques (v.106: 5, Nov. 1974), 853-9.
Maryland Institutions Holding Artworks: Baltimore Museum of Art (painting, print); Johns Hopkins University; Walters Art Museum
Maryland Institutions Holding Autobiographical Resources, Archives, Personal Papers, Ephemera, or Other Primary Source Material: Account Book of Alfred Jacob Miller 1846-187, The Library of the Maryland Historical Society