Two works by Green were included in the landmark exhibition, In the Fullness of Time, Painting in Buffalo 1832-1972, which opened at the Burchfield Penney Art Center in November 2019. While her work has been included in many other exhibitions, to the best of our knowledge At the Water’s Edge is the first ever solo museum exhibition of her work. Green was one of the few women painting during a period dominated by men. It is the goal of the Burchfield Penney to shine a light on those artists who were underrepresented during their time and after. 

Throughout her career, Green created several illustrations for the Buffalo Courier Express. At least one watercolor in the exhibition was published in that newspaper. The ca. 1940 work, Grain Barge in Buffalo Harbor, on loan from a private collection, depicts a series of boats serving different functions in the harbor of the day. At left, massive cranes scoop grain from distant barges onto lake boats for shipping. Workers can be seen directing the cranes as they scoop. At right, two children, a woman and a man are seen at the back of a grain barge tied to a pier. In the foreground, a child in a blue dress plays with a small dog. The caption for this work in the newspaper reads:

People are born, live and die on canal boats. Mildred C. Green has chosen the teeming life at Buffalos’ Barge Canal terminus as the subject for this Sunday’ painting. 

Green completed murals for M.J. Kinsella in Buffalo and the Niagara and Eastman Power Company in Niagara Falls. She also created a mural proposal for Buffalo’s City Hall, a building completed in 1931. The final selection for that space would go to New York City-based artist, William de Leftwich Dodge, whose style was perhaps more congruous with the Art Deco architecture of the building. At least three panels from Green’s proposal have survived, however, and are included in the exhibition. Most intriguing among them is the ca. 1931 piece titled, The Growth of Buffalo (Education). Created mostly in pencil with some painted additions, it was never completed. Included in the composition are some of Buffalo’s oldest educational institutions. At left are the original Albright Art Gallery, the Buffalo History Museum, Hayes Hall at the University at Buffalo and the old Buffalo Public Library, which was demolished in 1960. The right side features the Buffalo Museum of Science, the Old Main building at Canisius College and Rockwell Hall at Buffalo State. It is notable that most of the buildings in this work still exist today. A few from the picture remain unidentified. A curious addition to the series was found on the back of a small oil painting depicting men on a farm bailing hay. The back of this work, which was painted on panel, includes sketches for some of the other sections of the proposal as well.

A large oil painting on loan from the collection of Dayna and Carl Slone depicts a different part of the economy of the Buffalo Harbor. In the undated Lake Freighter, a massive lake boat sitting high above the water is led into the harbor by two tugboats through broken blocks of ice. Beyond the boats, the sky is lit up with the red, orange and green colors of the sunset. This boat would have presumably been empty, as a fully loaded boat would sit lower in the water. With the spring thaw approaching, perhaps it was meant to be filled at the massive grain elevators that still exist on the Buffalo River today. At the back of the ship, bilge water can be seen exiting the boat’s hull. 

The trees depicted here may have been cypresses, a popular tree in European landscapes, but it is much more likely that they were poplars, which would do better in the climate of the region around Buffalo. A photograph by Wilbur Porterfield, from the same period, depicts a very similar scene. Porterfield’s Trees of Lombardy - Fort Erie, shows tall trees like the ones seen in the painting. The title of the photograph also suggests where Green may have painted them. The Lombardy poplar was imported to the United States from the banks Po River in Italy at the end of the 18th century. It quickly became popular and proliferated across the northeastern states, but there is nothing like the widespread use of a plant to uncover its potential problems. They were susceptible to a canker forming fungus that kills the trees from the top down, and they are all but gone from the landscape of the region. Much like the artwork of this period that was popular in its time, the Lombardy poplar, is little known today. 

By the time Green painted these trees, they were probably near the end of their lives. The same can perhaps be said about the Buffalo Harbor and the industries that made it so significant. The towering grain elevators today are all but empty, awaiting a new purpose. In their original use, they were representative of a different time. As we move towards new models for growth, it is artists like Mildred Green, who can help us see our past, and avoid the mistakes we made, lest we are doomed to repeat them.