Night Blooming Prophecy

Stephen Robeson-Miller (b. 1955) is an American artist and scholar whose primary focus has been on the art and artists of Surrealism. His early interest in Surrealism was sparked by discovering a book about Hieronymus Bosch in 1969 in the art room at his school, and that led him very quickly to the art of Salvador Dalí. Beginning at a young age he sought out the surviving artists of the movement whom he interviewed and befriended, in addition to meeting important art historians and gallerists associated with Surrealism. The illustrious and impressive list of individuals with whom he was in contact is long, but includes Aube Breton, Alexander Calder, Leonora Carrington, Jean Dubuffet, Naum Gabo, Peggy Guggenheim, Pierre Matisse, Roberto Matta, Gordon Onslow-Ford, Meret Oppenheim, Alfonso Ossorio, Roland Penrose, Arlette Seligmann, Dorothea Tanning, and Patrick Waldberg. Transcripts of his interviews and correspondence with these individuals are in various public archives, including the Philadelphia Museum Art, The Archives of American Art (Smithsonian Institution), and the Harry Ransom Research Center, University of Texas, Austin.

Robeson-Miller’s own artistic practice draws inspiration from dreams, images arising from his unconscious, and experiments with various materials and techniques, and has led to a distinctive body of work including paintings, drawings and collages. Many of his works poetically incorporate chance experiences and encounters in the surrealist manner. For example, while walking the streets of his adopted hometown of Cambridge, Massachusetts he found large pieces of paper in the trash, some of them even containing random splotches of paint. These discards he then took into his studio where, with painstaking care, he collaged them onto cut-up pieces of his own work and then drew over the entire surface, incorporating the previous markings and colorations of his choosing. Often deceptively subtle, his surfaces are rich in layers of different materials, incorporating the chance encounter as part of his formal process.

A survey of over fifty of his artworks, along with documentary materials, was exhibited recently at the Stevenson Library at Bard College (August 15–October 30, 2023). Vitrines included letters from artists such as Calder and Wifredo Lam, along with photographs of Robeson-Miller with David Hare, Muriel Streeter, Anne Clark Matta, and William N. Copley. A notable documentary item was a copy of J.H. Matthews’ 1991 book The Surrealist Mind sporting on its cover Robeson-Miller’s work The Insomniac’s Dream (1971–73). This photomontage beautifully reflects his aesthetic in juxtaposing a sleeping shirted male against a collage of cut-out, and randomly numbered, eyeballs. For the surrealists, inspiration and revolution occur in the dream state.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Robeson-Miller, like most people, experienced a high degree of isolation. It led to a re-evaluation regarding the place of humanity in his work and in turn a stylistic emancipation that increasingly led him to return to the human figure, especially heads.

Stephen Robeson-Miller (b. 1955, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania) became interested in Surrealism soon after his family moved to western Connecticut in 1969. At age 15, he wanted to write a book titled Surrealism in Connecticut, determining to contribute to it through his own creative art practice and writing. Friendships and correspondences with significant members of the Surrealist circle in France and the United States followed, and his publications include essays on Kay Sage, Kurt Seligmann, Yves Tanguy, Muriel Streeter-Levy, Stella Snead, and Nino Japaridze. His collection of papers and correspondence with this circle enriches, among others, the Philadelphia Museum of Art archives. His own surrealist art has been exhibited in various galleries in New York City, Boston, Massachusetts, and most recently at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York (Night Blooming Prophecy: The Surrealism of Stephen Robeson-Miller, Aug 15 - Oct 31, 2023). Robeson-Miller is represented by the Gallery of Surrealism, New York. (Note: in 1983, he legally changed his surname from Miller to Robeson-Miller).

Susan L. Aberth is the Edith C. Blum Professor in the Art History and Visual Culture Program at Bard College.  In 2022 she received a Curatorial Research grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation for travel in connection with an exhibition on esoteric traditions in the Americas. Her book publications include The Tarot of Leonora Carrington (2020, reissued in an expanded edition 2022) co-authored with Mexican curator Tere Arcq; Leonora Carrington: Surrealism, Alchemy and Art (2004, Lund Humphries & Turner, Spain). She has contributed to numerous books and exhibition catalogues: Surrealism and Magic, Guggenheim Venice (2022); Hilma af Klint (Zwirner Gallery, 2022), Olga de Amaral (Lisson Gallery, 2022), Not Without My Ghosts (2020, Traveling exhibition in England); Agnes Pelton: Desert Transcendentalist (Phoenix Art Museum, 2019), Juanita Guccione: Otherwhere (Napa Valley Museum, 2019), Surrealism, Occultism and Politics: In Search of the Marvelous (Routledge Press, 2018), Leonora Carrington: Cuentos Magicos (Museo de Arte Moderno & INBA, Mexico City, 2018), Unpacking: The Marciano Collection (Delmonico Books, Prestel, 2017), and Leonora Carrington and the International Avant-Garde (Manchester University Press, 2017), as well as to Journal of Surrealism of the Americas, Artforum, Abraxas: International Journal of Esoteric Studies, and Black Mirror. Prof. Aberth is one of the founding members of the International Society for the Study of Surrealism (ISSS).