Title: Freyda Miller Photographic Portfolios,

Date (inclusive): 2000-2006

Collection number: 1738

Creator: Miller, Freyda

Extent: 2 boxes (2 linear ft.)

Abstract: The collection contains two portfolios. The first, entitled The Naked Tree (edition no. 4), is comprised of hand-tinted photographs by Miller and was produced in 2000. The second, Here Comes the Bride and Other Nightmares, was produced in 2006 and is comprised of mostly color photography with 2 hand-tinted images.

Repository: University of California, Los Angeles. Library. Department of Special Collections.

Physical location: Stored off-site at SRLF. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. Please contact the UCLA Library, Department of Special Collections Reference Desk for paging information.

Freyda (Margolis) Miller was born on May 9, 1938 in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1944 she moved with her parents and younger siblings to Los Angeles, where she began pursuing the arts, particularly dance, at an early age. Miller majored in Advertising Art during her first two years of college. She later returned to school to continue her art education and graduated cum laude from the UCLA Department of Fine Arts in 1977, with an emphasis in fine art photography. By this time, she was married and had two children. In 1978, Miller began exhibiting and working at Soho/Cameraworks, a photography gallery in the Los Angeles area. She left the gallery to become a photographer's stylist and production coordinator, assisting a commercial photographer with casting, wardrobe, set decorating, location scouting, and props. In the early 1980s she developed her own business, Prop Connection West, which targeted photographers and commercial production companies on the East coast and in the Midwest. The wealth of resources in the Hollywood area and the mild weather on the West coast gave her the opportunity to send much-needed props and wardrobe to these clients and also to set up productions for them in California. During these years, she continued creating and exhibiting her own fine art photography. By the late 1990s, Miller had established a studio and was working exclusively on her own art. It was during this time that she began compiling Here Comes the Bride and Other Nightmares and The Naked Tree, the two books that comprise this collection. The books feature her work from the late 1970s through the late 1990s, paired with classical literature that resonates with the images. Statements on both of these works are included in the collection. Her work is also in the permanent collections of the St. Louis Museum of Art; the New Orleans Museum of Art; the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum; the Peter Palmquist Archives; and the Women in Photography International Archives. At present, she is represented by Corbis Corp., an international photography agency, where her work is included in their Fine Arts Department; LACMA's Art Rental and Sales Gallery, Los Angeles; Art Dimensions, Los Angeles; ArtPic, North Hollywood; McLean Gallery, Malibu; and D & A Fine Arts, Studio City. Miller is currently working on a series of assemblages, which is a natural outgrowth of her photographic imagery.

Both portfolios are comprised of photographs by Miller, mounted on hand-deckled watercolor paper and accompanied by quotations from classical literature printed on vellum. The Naked Tree (edition no. 4), produced in 2000, is comprised of 113 leaves of hand-tinted photographs, and expresses the relationship between the human form and the mysterious primal nature of trees. Here Comes the Bride and Other Nightmares, produced in 2006, is comprised of 108 leaves of mostly color photography with 2 hand-tinted images, and represents Miller's reflections on the roles women play in society.

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.