Miller-Havens Art

Born and raised in New Jersey a bus ride away from the NYC art world, Susan Miller-Havens has been a resident of Cambridge, MA for over four decades. Miller-Havens has two 20 year careers: one in the field of mental health, the other in fine arts. Originally a reconstructive surgical nurse at the MGH, she was one of the founders of The Department of Psychiatry at The Cambridge Hospital.

While working in a clinic she pursued a degree in studio art from Wellesley College where her honors advisers were the watercolorist Richard Yarde and landscape artist, James Wilson Rayen, both practicing artists. Drawn back to psychology she completed her Doctorate in Human Development from Harvard School of Education. After working in adoption reform as an educator she realized once again that human nature was still something she longed to express using art as the vehicle.

Not primarily a portrait artist, Miller-Havens paintings focus on the subtleties within relationships and the human condition in general.

She is known as an artist who invites the viewer into the painting through unexpected use of color, absence of background, and inventive cropping of the images.  

Her work is part of private collections in  San Diego, Denver, Miami, New York, and Boston. Her commissions  include the official portrait of Mayor Alice Wolf  Hall of Fame basketball coach Patrick J. Riley and Harvard Dean Jerome T. Murphy. Her life size portrait of Cooperstown Hall of Fame catcher Carlton Fisk is in the Permanent Collection of the National Portrait Gallery Washington D. C. as is her Portrait of Pedro J. Martinez.