Francis Davis Millet

Francis Davis Millet
Francis Millet, portrait by George Du Maurier, 1889.
Born	(1848-11-03)November 3, 1848 Mattapoisett, Massachusetts US
Died	April 15, 1912(1912-04-15) (aged 63) RMS Titanic, Atlantic Ocean
Occupation	Painter, Sculptor

Francis Davis Millet (November 3, 1848 – April 15, 1912) was an American painter, sculptor, and writer who died in the sinking of the RMS Titanic on April 15, 1912.

Francis Davis Millet was born in Mattapoisett, Massachusetts. Most sources state that his date of birth was November 3, 1846, but a diary which he kept during his military service stated that November 3, 1864 was his 16th birthday, thus indicating birth in 1848. At age fifteen, Millet entered the Massachusetts regiment, first as a drummer boy and then a surgical assistant (helping his father, a surgeon) in the American Civil War.

He repeatedly pointed to his experience working for his father as giving him an appreciation for the vivid blood red that he repeatedly used in his early paintings. He graduated from Harvard with a Master of Arts degree. He worked as a reporter and editor for the Boston Courier and then as a correspondent for the Advertiser at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition.

In 1876, Millet returned to Boston to paint murals at Trinity Church in Boston with John LaFarge. He entered the Royal Academy of Fine Arts at Antwerp, Belgium, and won a silver medal in his first year (never before done), followed by a gold medal in his second. In the Russo‐Turkish war of 1877–78, he was engaged as a war correspondent by the New York Herald, the London Daily News, and the London Graphic. He was decorated by Russia and Romania due to his bravery under fire and services to the wounded.

Millet became a member of the Society of American Artists in 1880, and in 1885 was elected as a member of the National Academy of Design, New York and as Vice-Chairman of the Fine Arts Committee. He was made a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and sat on the advisory committee of the National Gallery of Art. He was decorations director for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, with claims he invented the first form of compressed air spray painting to apply whitewash to the buildings, but the story may be apocryphal, journals from that time note spray painting had already been in use since the early 1880s. His career included work with a number of worlds' fairs, including Vienna, Chicago, Paris, and Tokyo, where he made contributions as a juror, administrator, mural painter/decorator, or adviser.