Thomas Oxley Miller -Still Life w/ Books,Newspaper & a Pipe-19th century Oil painting 19th century Realism - Oil painting on canvas - signed and dated 1896 canvas size 13x18" Frame size 17x22" Artist Biography Thomas Oxley Miller (1854 - 1909) was active/lived in California. He is known for Landscape, western frontier genre. Thomas Oxley Miller was born in Columbia, CA on June 4, 1854. While growing up in the Mother Lode country, Miller developed a great love of nature. Inspired by the beauty of Yosemite and the surrounding area, at age 20 he decided to become an artist. He then moved to San Francisco where he was one of the first pupils to enroll at the School of Design. After four years there under Virgil Williams, he moved to Stockton and had a studio in the Hook's Bldg. There he gave art lessons to daughters of the local pioneer families, among them Anita Galgiani whom he wed in 1897. Miller also taught classes in Oakland on occasion where one of his pupils was artist Jimmy Swinnerton. He was a lifelong friend of William Keith whose works he greatly admired and with whom he often accompanied on camping and sketching trips. His pastoral scenes of the High Sierra and Mother Lode country are objective, peaceful, and realistically depicted. Many of his oils are signed simply "Miller." A shy and retiring man, he seldom exhibited; however, his works were shown at the Chicago Worlds Fair in 1893. Miller died of a stroke at his Stockton home on Nov. 6, 1909.