Unconquered

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Senior class gift 1927. Born in Independence, Kansas, in 1882, Miller was an art teacher in Kansas City, Missouri, but did a great deal of her painting on the California coast. Based on notes of Miss DeLuce, this was painted at Asilomar, near Carmel, where there are "to be found some wonderful specimens of pine trees, bent and twisted, yet maintaining their foothold in the yielding sand against the ravaging winds. It is in this aspect of the trees, conquering in spite of tremendous odds, that led to the choice of 'Unconquered' as the title."

This is the only work in this exhibition to have had any restorative measures taken. In 1979 the lower portion received a puncture when the ceiling of the room in which it was located, fell. The conservator, Sidney Larson of Columbia, adhered a new piece of canvas to the reverse of the original and through a careful manipulation of threads of the canvas and the layers of paint was able to restore the work without the need for any in-painting. At the same time, the original coating of varnish was removed bringing the colors back to the intensities that they had when the work was first painted.