The Tile Club: Camaraderie and American Plein-Air Painting The Tile Club | Page 88

Francis Davis Millet
American, 1846–1912
“To write worthily of a man who filled successfully so many
spheres…is no easy task” (Beckwith, 652). A painter, journalist,
linguist, designer, writer, muralist, and war correspondent, Fran-
cis Davis Millet lived an exceptional life before one fateful night
aboard the RMS Titanic in April of 1912.
Millet was born in Mattapoisett, Massachusetts. During the
Civil War, he served first as a surgical assistant to his father and
later, upon officially enlisting, a guard in the 60th Regiment of
the Massachusetts Volunteer Militia. In 1869, he graduated from
Harvard with honors in modern languages and literature. He
then went to work for the Boston Courier while studying with the
lithographer Dominique C. Fabronius. Perhaps upon Fabronius’
suggestion, Millet enrolled at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts
in Antwerp in 1871. After two years of study, he was appointed
secretary to the Massachusetts Board of Commissioners at the
Vie nna World’s Fair. Fittingly, he wrote on the 1876 Philadelphia
Centennial for the Daily Advertiser, and in 1893 he was director
of decorations at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
Millet returned to Europe during the Russo‐Turkish war of
1877–1878 where he served as a correspondent for the New York
Herald, the London Daily News, and the London Graphic. Thereafter,
while in Paris in 1879, Millet married Elizabeth Greely Merrill,
Augustus Saint-Gaudens (American, b. Ireland, 1848–1907),
Francis Davis Millet, 1879, bronze, 10 1/2 x 6 1/2 in., Chazen
Museum of Art, gift of D. Frederick Baker from the Baker/
Pisano Collection, 2017.27.59
REFERENCES:
Ackerman, Gerald M. American Orientalists. Courbevoie/Paris:
ACR, 1994.
with Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Mark Twain serving as witness- Baxter, Sylvester. “Francis Davis Millet: An Appreciation of the
ments. In 1880, he became a member of the Society of American Beckwith, Carroll. “Francis Davis Millet: A Memoir.” Art and
es. The remainder of his life continued to be filled with accomplish-
Artists; he was elected to the National Academy of Design in 1885;
and in 1904, he was appointed secretary of the American Academy
in Rome, founded by Charles F. McKim. Millet was also an advisor
to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and National Gallery of Art,
and he was one of the founders of the School of the Museum of
Fine Arts, Boston and the American Federation of the Arts.
82 THE TILE CLUB: Camaraderie and American Plein-Air Painting
Man.” Art and Progress 3, no. 9 ( July 1912): 635–642.
Progress 3, no. 9 ( July 1912): 652–653.
D’Angelo, Gina M. “Francis Davis Millet—The Early Years
of ‘A Cosmopolitan Yankee,’ 1846–1884.” PhD diss., City
University of New York, 2004.
Dearinger, David Bernard, ed. Paintings and Sculpture in the
Collection of the National Academy of Design. Volume 1,
1826–1925. New York: Hudson Hills Press, 2004.