This summer, the Morris Arboretum & Gardens sign at the corner of Stenton and Northwestern Avenues was draped with supersized red poppies. The poppies are reproductions of the colossal sculptures created by late artist Gary G. Miller that were designed and installed on Morris’ Northwestern Avenue meadows in May 2008.

The much-loved installation, “Papaver Rubrum Giganteum,” funded by the Woodmere art museum and Morris, was one of the most popular large-scale installations in Philadelphia memory.

Featuring 300 handmade aluminum poppies with 20-inch flower heads in vibrant shades of red atop 10-foot tall stems, the flowers were designed to bend and wave in the wind.

Tragically, Miller, then 61, a sculpture and photography teacher at Germantown Friends School and facilitator of children’s community art projects at Woodmere, was killed on Oct. 5, 2013, by a drunk driver in a two-car collision near his home in Wyndmoor.

To commemorate Miller’s poppies, the Chestnut Hill Community Association arranged an exhibition entitled “Papaver Rubrum Giganteum Redux.” The show, a selection of photographs, will be on view in a pop-up space at 8514 Germantown Ave. (across from Starbucks) from Saturday, Sept. 27, through Saturday, Oct. 4, including evening hours on First Friday, Oct. 3.

Large-scale, large impact

“Papaver Rubrum Giganteum” won a Black Rock City Art Honorarium, underwriting its 2008 installation at the Burning Man Festival in Nevada. After the display at Morris Arboretum, Miller transported the 300 poppy sculptures to the desert for the duration of that year’s Burning Man.

The contrast and influence of the poppies on the two dramatically different backdrops — Philadelphia’s spring meadow and the barren desert — is compelling. Miller documented the contrast in 10 large photographs, “Five in the Field, Five in the Desert,” that will be displayed in the exhibition.

Miller’s widow, Jo Ann Miles Miller, told the Local, “Gary was a beloved member of our local community. He touched many lives with his teaching at Germantown Friends School and Woodmere and with his own playful and insightful work.”

Miller’s previous outdoor large-scale public art installations included two at Woodmere: “No Big Thing,” as part of the 2004 citywide exhibition, “The Big Nothing”; and “Inside/Outside: Celebrating Robert Venturi” in 2006.

In a 2008 interview with the Local, Miller said his pieces used relocation, juxtaposition, modification and scale to challenge a viewer’s perception. He explained, “The poppies, for example, sway and bend in the wind, just like real poppies but on a larger, more surreal scale. The large-scale installations are designed for the general public, to multigenerational and sometime accidental audiences.”

Miller, who served on Woodmere’s board of directors for several years, was born in Corpus Christi, Texas, but traveled the world as the son of a naval officer. He earned his B.F.A. from Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, and loved creating wood sculptures and furniture.

He later worked as an exhibits designer at the Brooklyn Children’s Museum in New York. After moving to Philadelphia in 1994, Miller created diverse works ranging from small woodcarvings to large pieces at Woodmere, Morris Arboretum, and what is now The Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education.

Why poppies?

Miller was inspired to create the piece in part by the then-approaching World War I centennial and the poem: “In Flanders Fields,” written by Canadian doctor John McCrea in 1915, the day after the funeral of a close friend and fellow soldier in a graveyard strewn with poppies.

Poppies do not need to be planted or cultivated. They spring up on their own when soil is disturbed and dormant seeds are exposed to light. Fierce fighting and shelling, trench digging, and grave digging stirred up soil on the Western Front, causing tens of thousands of poppy seeds to germinate and bloom.

In 2008, Miller said the poppy, as a symbol of remembrance of those who died in the war, is one of the important and universal meanings associated with the flower. However, he did not want his installation to be limited to a single interpretation.

“An early harbinger of spring, tenacious yet delicate and beautiful, their historical, cultural, religious, artistic, and even medicinal importance cannot be understated or overlooked,” Miller wrote. “The artist chooses to leave it to the individual viewer to interpret any personal meaning or significance. Perhaps they’re just a field of big red flowers.”

“Papaver Rubrum Giganteum Redux,” 8514 Germantown Ave. (across from Starbucks), Chestnut Hill, Saturday, Sept. 27, through Saturday, Oct. 4. Evening hours on First Friday, Oct. 3. For more information, contact the Chestnut Hill Community Association at 215-248-8810.