Friday, December 15, 2017

Grandson of John Everett Millais as Camoufleur

Millais, Christ in the Carpenter's Shop (c1850)
Above A slide from one of my lectures on the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in a university course on the History of Design at the University of Northern Iowa. It is from a series of analyses of the symbolic and compositional systems in the paintings of John Everett Millais, in this case Christ in the Carpenter's Shop (1949-50). He was married to Effie Ruskin Millais (née Effie Gray), whose previous marriage to art critic John Ruskin had been annulled. While returning from London recently, I read a detailed account of this in Suzanne Fagence Cooper's Effie: The Passionate Lives of Effie Gray, John Ruskin and John Everett Millais.

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ARTISTS WANT TO CAMOUFLAGE in Sunday Times (Perth, Western Australia), January 28, 1940, p. 2—

LONDON—One of the artists whose name has been submitted to the War Office for camouflage work is Mr. Raoul Millais, grandson of Sir John Millais, the Pre-Raphaelite painter, who became president of the Royal Academy.

Mr. Millais has so far specialized in portraits of people and horses.

A member of the Beaufort Hunt, Mr. Millais has painted several horses belonging to his fellow followers of the pack.

His most notable horse subject was Blandford, the sire of several Derby winners.