Seven portraits sit in various stages of completion in Terri Miller’s home studio. Throughout her long and successful career as one of the country’s most successful equine artists, Terri has been equally well known for her photographs and her paintings. But lately she’s enjoyed the chance to spend the majority of her time painting. That explains the crowded studio, which is located at the hillside San Diego home Terri shares with her husband Axel Steiner, a top international dressage judge.
The shift toward more painting has come with more private photo assignments, both for commercial purposes and for “owners who just love their horses,” Terri says. As a show photographer, Terri has been a familiar presence at the nicest West Coast and national dressage shows over the years, but the portrait commissions and private farm shoots have cut down her competition itinerary.

“I love working the shows,” she admits, “but these bigger projects have really allowed me to concentrate on the people I’m working for and their horses. It’s fun!”
Total immersion in her art is a source of joy for Terri. That was especially true during the lengthy process of completing a specially commissioned portrait of the late, great international dressage stallion, Roemer. The 30” by 40” oil on canvas work was installed in the United States Dressage Federation’s Hall of Fame to commemorate the Hall’s one-year anniversary at the Federation’s Lexington, KY headquarters.
The assignment came about through Terri’s long-standing relationship with Iron Spring Farm owner Mary Alice Malone. “I’ve been photographing Iron Spring’s stallions for I don’t know how long,” Terri says. She describes the Roemer commission as “an absolute honor.”
Although Roemer died in 1996, Terri and Mary Alice between them had ample photo references for the celebrity stallion. “We looked at all the different places and poses we’d seen him in then settled on that piaffe as the right way to immortalize him,” Terri relays. “His piaffe was so lovely and balanced.”
The painting’s background is an amalgam of images and impressions of the Iron Spring Farm landscapes Terri has come to love over the many seasons she has visited the Pennsylvania sporthorse breeding farm.
The next step was a scouting trip to the Hall of Fame to study where the painting would live. Its prominent location in the narrow entry hallway meant the painting “had to read well when approached from the side, as well as from right in front of it,” Terri explains. Because visitors can view it at very close range, the portrait required extremely exact detailing. These challenges were a few of many that added to the fun of the project, Terri says proudly.
Challenges continue in her current assignments. One of her favorites is a three-painting series of horses with very different personalities. “One has a little devilish look in his eyes, another wants to look directly at you, and the third horse is a real lover,” she says. The portraits will hang as a group in the client’s home. “Getting those three canvases to work as a whole while still capturing each horse’s unique personality adds another dimension to the project.”
Although the equine portraiture and photography keeps her quite busy, Terri makes time to pursue additional artistic interests. She is interviewing galleries to display her art to the general public and exploring a series of still-life paintings, some of which include trophies, ribbons and bits, and some of which have no equestrian elements. “But they are all colorful and a little quirky,” she says.
With a lens or a paintbrush, Terri has been capturing the soul and spirit of the horse for over 30 years. Her photographs have appeared in People, Sports Illustrated and Fine Homes and her pictures and paintings have been published by almost every major equine publication. Along the way, she has won numerous awards for photography and painting.
Growing up on Long Island, NY, Terri began photographing horses as a way to be involved with the show world she could not afford to participate in as a rider. “Some people are born with a silver spoon in their mouth,” Terri says cheerfully. “I was born with a pencil!”
She was a rider throughout her youth, and through much of her adulthood until work demands made that impossible. Terri graduated from New York’s School of the Visual Arts, where she majored in illustration. That training set a strong foundation on which Terri added her deep and ever-evolving understanding of equine form and movement.
Although her schedule of show appearances is limited now, Terri expects to be presenting her work at the Del Mar Classic CDI this November and possibly at the CDS Championships in October in Woodside.
For information on commissioning photographs or paintings by Terri Miller, please call 760-510-9449 or visit www.terrimiller.com.