Carl Milles

Carl Milles (23 June 1875 – 19 September 1955) was a Swedish sculptor. He was married to artist Olga Milles and brother to Ruth Milles and half brother to the architect Evert Milles. Carl Milles sculpted the Poseidon statue in Gothenburg, the Gustaf Vasa statue at the Nordic Museum, the Orpheus group outside the and the Folke Filbyter sculpture in Linköping. The latter was featured on a stamp issued in 1975 commemorating the centenary of his birth. Millesgården became his last home and is now a museum.

Milles was born Carl Wilhelm Andersson, son of lieutenant Emil "Mille" Andersson and his wife Walborg Tisell, (June 23, 1875 – September 19, 1955) at Lagga outside Uppsala in 1875. In 1897 he made what he thought would be a temporary stop in Paris on his way to Chile, where he was due to manage a school of gymnastics. However, he remained in Paris, where he studied art, working in Auguste Rodin's studio and slowly gaining recognition as a sculptor. In 1904 he and Olga moved to Munich.

Two years later they settled in Sweden, buying property on Herserud Cliff on Lidingö, a large island near Stockholm. Millesgården was built there between 1906 and 1908 as the sculptor's private residence and workspace. It was turned into a foundation and donated to the Swedish people in 1936, five years after Milles had sailed for America and the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills.

In 1931, American publisher George Gough Booth brought Milles to Cranbrook Educational Community, in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, to serve as his sculptor in residence. Part of Booth's arrangement with his principal artists was that they were expected to create major commissions outside the Cranbrook environment.

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