Born Henrietta Myers in 1913 in the United States, Peter Miller was an American modern and surrealist artist. She studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1933 and 1934. In an artistic environment still largely dominated by men, she adopted the male name Peter, a nickname given to her as a child, and the name Miller, that of her husband Earle Miller. This choice allows her to evolve in an art world marked by strong inequalities between women and men.
She held two solo exhibitions at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York, in 1944 and 1946. In 1945, she took part in the exhibition The Women, organised by Peggy Guggenheim at the Art of this Century gallery in New York.
Living in Pennsylvania part of the year and spending the winter months in Espanola, New Mexico, Peter Miller gradually developed a deeply personal pictorial language. She ties with the artistic community of Santa Fe nourish her interest in petroglyphs, ceremonial objects and desert landscapes. Her paintings, composed of many layers of colors, show a fascination for nature, ancient cultures and spirituality. Her research is also inspired by theosophy and notions such as the collective unconscious, telepathy or synchronicity, without fully inscribing it in a particular artistic movement.
As her work begins to be recognized, Peter Miller gradually withdraws from the art scene. She continued to paint in the 1960s and 1970s, but stopped promoting her work in galleries. She nevertheless continued her practice until the end of her life.