Night Blooming Prophecy: The Surrealism of Stephen Robeson-Miller

Night Blooming ProphecyThe Surrealism of Stephen Robeson-Miller Susan L. Aberth (bio) and Stephen Robeson-Miller (bio) 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, which 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, and met 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 Elléouët Breton, Alexander Calder, Leonora Carrington, Jean Dubuffet, Naum Gabo, Peggy Guggenheim, Marcel Jean, Wifredo Lam, 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 End Page 113 experiments with various materials and techniques, which has led to a distinctive body of work that includes 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 a letter from Alexander Calder, 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's 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 woman 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. This led to a reevaluation 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. What follows is an interview that was conducted on October 9, 2023, via Zoom, in conjunction with the exhibition "Night Blooming Prophecy: The Surrealism of Stephen Robeson-Miller" at Stevenson Library, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. Susan Aberth, the Edith C. Blum Professor of Art History and Visual End Page 114 Culture at Bard College curated this exhibition of around seventy-five paintings, collages, and drawings, as well as personal materials of the artist. Spanning two floors of the library, the exhibition ran August 15–October 31, 2023. _____ susan aberth: How does Surrealism as a movement, as well as the many surrealists you've met, inspire your own work? stephen robeson-miller: Surrealism continues to offer a wellspring for life's mysteries and therefore has always been paramount in my visual creations, perhaps especially because, to paraphrase André Breton, "There is no such thing as surrealist art, there are just approximations of Surrealism. " Surrealism has always been an outlook and a way of thinking and approaching life, a state of mind, a philosophy. Visually, there are different kinds of Surrealism, ranging from, on the one hand, convulsive beauty "la beaute convulsive" to. . .