This triptych typifies Miller’s “Afro-Deco” style, which features like strong shapes, bright colors, and bold patterns. The panels include a fruit seller with an Arabber cart and other iconic Baltimore motifs like crabs, the Washington monument, row houses, and boats in the Harbor. Tom Miller (1945–2000) was born and raised in the Sandtown-Winchester area of Baltimore, and his playful, colorful, and magical style holds a special place in the city’s history. Miller earned his BFA at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in 1967 and worked in Baltimore City Public Schools as an art resource teacher for 20 years. When he returned to MICA for his MFA in 1985 on a Ford Foundation Scholarship, he developed his love for painting previously discarded furniture in his iconic style. From 1991 to 1998, he created six murals around Baltimore, five of which are still extant.

Miller lived with AIDS during the last decade of his life. Although he was out as a gay man for a long time in his personal and social life, he started speaking more openly with his colleagues, family, and students about being a gay Black man, an often stigmatized identity, upon his diagnosis in 1989. He continued to create art until his death in 2000 and is remembered as a man of great courage and brilliance in Baltimore’s LGBTQ+ history.