Gordon Miller Maritime and Native Paintings

Introduction

My home in Vancouver, British Columbia, has a long and rich history of human occupation, but only a brief period of foreign settlement. The first European contact with the local natives was a Spanish ship off Langara Island in 1774. A great part of my life has been spent exploring the histories of European exploration by sea, and the life of the indigenous people of the northwest coast of North America.

Early in my professional career I was Chief Designer at the Vancouver Centennial Museum and the Vancouver Maritime Museum, and in the years since, I have completed many design and illustration commissions for the UBC Museum of Anthropology, the Museum of History in Ottawa, and the Royal BC Museum in Victoria. My interest in history was fired by these institutions, and the research and accuracy demanded by them has governed my approach to all historical illustration.

Aside from a few private commissions, most of the maritime paintings were created for two books published by Douglas & McIntyre; VOYAGES, to the new World and Beyond, in 2011, and PACIFIC VOYAGES, the Story of Sail in the Great Ocean, in 2023.

The series of paintings of natives of the Northwest Coast were produced during a period of research of villages and artifacts of the natives of British Columbia for the UBC Museum of Anthropology and the Canadian Museum of History. I have since completed commissions for the Junior Encyclopedia of Canada, the National Film Board of Canada, the Canadian Mint, and my work has appeared in many educational publications and film documentaries.