Layered Realities: Peter Milton’s Prints from the Museum Collection

September 20 – December 7, 2024

Drawing from the Zillman Art Museum’s extensive holdings of contemporary prints, Layered Realities features an array of etchings and engravings by Peter Milton. Born in 1930, Milton, who is color blind, taught art at various universities including Yale and the Maryland Institute College of Art, among others. The majority of the featured works are from the artist’s The Jolly Corner suite of 1971. The suite is inspired by Henry James’ short story of the same name that was published in the English Review in 1908. The 21 images composing The Jolly Corner, depict construction sites and architectural interiors as a central element, along with recurrent subjects such as the nude female figure, workers on I-beams, and bearded men in profile. The characters in Milton’s prints include dapper aristocrats as well as working class laborers. In these meticulously detailed interiors—replete with nostalgia and mystery—hybrid animals such as a deer/tiger and a cat/rabbit appear within the spaces.  

A centerpiece of the exhibition, and a more recent creation, is the large-scale etching Points of Departure II Nijinsky Variations, 1996. This tour de force composition is teeming with a multitude of figures placed within a luxurious opera house whose interior is adorned with ornate fixtures and rich architectural features. Building on Surrealism’s evocative tendencies, Milton’s bedecked audience members seem to be extracted from different eras. Contributing to the drama are dancing ghostly apparitions that seem to hover in midair.  

Peter Milton has work in over 200 collections including the Museum of Modern Art, NYC, National Gallery of American Art, Washington, D.C., Tate Gallery, London and many other notable institutions.