Biography/History
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.
From the guide to the Freyda Miller Photographic Portfolios, 2000-2006, (University of California, Los Angeles. Library. Department of Special Collections.)
