Miller Gore Brittain was born in Saint John, New Brunswick in 1912, and attended Saint John Vocational School as a youth. From 1930 to 1932 Brittain studied at the Art Students' League of New York with artists such as Harry Wickey. He participated in several group exhibitions in Toronto, Montreal and New York in 1939 before serving in World War II, and became an official war artist in 1945. His first solo exhibitions took place in 1949 at the New Brunswick Museum and in New York at the George Binet Gallery in 1950. He continued to exhibit in New York, Toronto and New Brunswick through the 1950s and 1960s, as well as participating in group exhibitions nationally. He painted mainly the human figure - portraits, nudes, dynamic social realist paintings and interpretations of biblical stories - as well as many variations of flower subjects in the last five years of his life. He was deeply influenced by the English artists William Blake and Henry Moore.
Brittain was a founding member of the Federation of Canadian Artists, and was also a member of the Contemporary Arts Society and the Canadian Society of Graphic Artists. He died in 1968, and was awarded the Canadian Centennial Medal posthumously. Several nationally-touring exhibitions were presented after his death, including Miller G. Brittain: Drawings and Pastels c. 1930 - 1967 in 1968, Miller Brittain: Painter in 1981 and Miller Brittain: When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears in 2008.