of Fine Arts, Miller won many of its prizes and began to exhibit locally in 1894. Because the school was attached to the St. Louis Museum of Fine Arts and on the campus grounds of the school, students had the opportunity to see important historic works as well as exhibitions which included works from contemporary movements like Tonalism via the works of John La Farge, (1835–1910), and American Impressionism via the works of Theodore Robinson, (1892–1896), whose works were on view there during the 1895–1896 season. At Washington University, Miller studied with Edmund H. Wuerpel, an alumnus of the school, who had recently returned from Paris, and whose own works ('spare landscapes') were highly influenced by the French Barbizon School as well as the works of Whistler. Because of his teachers' orientation and the popularity of what was called the "Tonal School" at that time, Miller's earlier works were of quiet landscapes, Tonalist in orientation. By 1897, he was working as an illustrator for the St. Louis Post Dispatch and was saving money to go to Paris to further his studies. He was subsequently honored by receiving the first scholarship to study in Paris awarded by the St. Louis School of Fine Arts Student Association. Paris When Miller went to Paris he was already a trained painter and was rapidly making progress at the Academie Julien, the private academy where he and many other American artists studied. He lived a modest existence with other students on the left bank. There he was acquainted with the Chicago painter, Lawton Parker, who helped him get his start in Paris. Miller's work was critiqued by Jean-Paul Laurens and Benjamin Constant, two accomplished academic painters who had an excellent reputation in the Salon. The large, ambitious works Miller produced at the turn of the century were primarily scenes of Paris cafe life. In these works of stylish Parisian women, the figures are handled in an almost academic fashion with only some areas of the background painted in an indistinct manner. The Giverny Colony Miller seemed to turn to highly decorative works of attractive young women in their dressing gowns or kimono about 1904 and these are the works that he is best known for. He would spend summers in the American Art Colony of Giverny, which grew around Claude Monet's estate at about 1906, where he became close friends with Frederick Frieseke, another Impressionist