David Brown Milne (1882 – 1953), a prominent Canadian artist, has left an indelible mark on the art world and is regarded as one of the greatest North American artists of the first half of the 20th century.
David Milne was born in Paisley, Ontario, Canada, to a family of Scottish immigrants. There, in Paisley, young David went to school and proved himself as an outstanding student. In senior school, he showed a natural talent for teaching and was eventually invited to teach in a rural school near his hometown. He taught there for three years and was highly successful. However, his true passion was drawing.
In his early childhood, Milne was drawn to the exquisite shapes, patterns, and hues of the natural world, and he began to draw. He " filled several notebooks with plant pictures". However, as David Milne admitted later, drawing was the only subject he had failed in school. He was never “interested in perspective or copying”. So, David pursued his passion on his own though, there was not “the faintest sign of promise in any of this.”
In 1899 David Brown Milne began a correspondence art course at the Arcade School in New York. Later in 1903, he traveled to New York and continued his studies at the Art Students League, a well-known institution for nurturing artistic talents. You can easily locate Milne's name on the Prominent Former Students page of their website.
Milne attended lectures by William Merritt Chase (1849—1916), a renowned American impressionist who was once the president of the Society of American Artists and founded an art school located just a block away from the League.
Milne also attended lectures by Robert Henri (1865—1929), a talented portraitist who developed a unique brutalist style of depicting the harsh realities of urban life.
Milne enthusiastically visited galleries and art exhibitions featuring works by European, especially French Impressionist artists. He was fascinated by Claude Monet's paintings at the Paul Durand-Ruel Gallery (a dedicated building was opened in 1913 and operated till 1950). Paul Durand-Ruel (1831–1922), an ambitious art dealer, was the first to recognize the outstanding talents of those later known as Impressionists — Monet, Manet, Renoir, Sisley, Degas. In 1886 he brought to America 300 pieces of their works, organizing their first exhibition.
Photo: Municipal Archives
In the Gallery “291” (located in Midtown Manhattan at 291 Fifth Avenue and operated from 1905 to 1917), opened by Alfred Stieglitz (1864 – 1946), an American photographer and modern art advocate, David Milne became acquainted with the avant-garde European artists such as Henri Matisse, Henri Rousseau, Paul Cézanne, Constantin Brâncuși.
On his arrival in New York, Milne later wrote, “I started off knowing no more about my destination than if I had been plunging into the sun.” He came there to earn money through commercial work as his knowledge of art was limited. Milne did not abandon this idea — he still needed to make ends meet. But years spent in the metropolis, in times of its striking growth in every area — politics, progressive thought, architecture, had an eye-opening effect on David. Various art styles, forms, and genres expanded his horizons and inspired him to shift to watercolor and oil.
The artist began showcasing his art in galleries and art societies regularly. Eventually, his pieces were chosen to be featured at the prestigious Armory Show of 1913 — a major international exhibition of modern art in North America. His five works, namely "Little Figures", "Distorted Tree", "Columbus Circle", "The Garden", and "Reclining Figure", were displayed alongside paintings by renowned artists like Paul Cézanne, Gustave Courbet, Claude Monet, and Mary Cassatt, as well as sculptures by Constantin Brâncuși. The exhibition first opened in New York and then moved on to Chicago and Boston.
Milne diligently experimented with various mediums such as watercolor, oil, pastel, and etching. He crafted vivid images with rich, deep colors. From 1906 to 1915, he took part in 38 exhibitions and art shows.
What shaped David Milne’s artistic style during this period? His exposure to French painting left a lasting impression and enriched him, as did the modernist pursuits of American artists of these years.
Milne hailed from Canada, where the artistic movement of the Group of Seven was flourishing during his time. This group's creative pursuits were sparked by the distinctive and matchless artwork of Tom Thomson.
Milne was also thrilled. He later wrote about the tragic early death of Tom Thomson: “… Canadian art apparently, for now at least, went down in Canoe Lake…”
Milne was inspired by Thomson's unique painting style and sought to develop his approach to art. The vivid and striking use of color in Thomson's works made Milne consider the use of white and black in his paintings, which became a defining characteristic of his color palette.
It is important to mention that Milne shifted his focus to landscapes as his primary subject after he participated in renowned exhibitions. He relocated to Boston Corner, a town situated in New York State, and started painting nature predominantly.
The outbreak of the First World War deeply tortured his soul, disrupting the peaceful balance of life. In 1917, Milne decided to join the Canadian Army. He was sent to Europe as a war artist by the Canadian War Memorials Fund, a charity established in 1916 to document Canada's involvement in the war. His mission was to capture the aftermath of the war, where Canadian soldiers bravely fought and lost their lives. David Milne arrived in France in May 1919 to begin his work.
He depicted busy camps, marching troops, bombed villages, remnants of mass slaughter, and fresh graves. His initial watercolors were exhibited in London alongside other Canadian War Memorials paintings. The Canadian press hailed him as a "provocative designer of the rarest distinction."
After returning from Europe back to Boston Corners, Milne felt shaken and had a strong desire to leave the art world behind. He realized that art cannot save a life from destruction. Instead, he yearned for solitude in the natural world, with its raw and often unforgiving beauty.
He longed to immerse himself in the breathtaking landscapes and solitude of the Catskills, the Berkshires, the Adirondack ...
But most of all, he was drawn to his home, which he left long ago, to Canada.
His first visit was brief. In the fall of 1923 Milne arrived in Ottawa. Renting a cheap studio at Sparks Street (this building was demolished in 1925), the artist quickly discovered the advantage of big windows and city views. His works from that period were mostly cityscapes.
Some of them were purchased by the National Gallery of Canada.
Despite his efforts, his Canadian trip failed, and even showcasing 95 of his paintings in Montreal did not improve his situation. Unable to sell his artwork or to find a job, the artist was compelled to leave his homeland... However, in 1929 David Milne returned to Canada. For good. “I turned my face homeward again”, he recalled.
He was heading to Northern Ontario where his life was ascetic. It was summertime and he stayed in a tent near the mining village of Temagami. His sense of the broken harmony and beauty of the world did not leave him. Milne captured the impact of a changing world, abandoned mines, and landscapes ravaged by industry in his artistic reflections.
But at the same time, he wrote: “To the miner [a deserted mineshaft] may be a disappointment but to the painter, in search of color it is a find”.
And something began to change in his perspective. His soul felt warmed, as the colors on his palette...
They were getting brighter...
And life turned its bright side to Milne. His paintings gained recognition in his home country. Art critics and curators praised his work, which was frequently showcased and sold. He also found patrons, including a politician and diplomat Vincent Massey (many years later in 1952 he would become Governor General of Canada). The president of the Massey Foundation, which aimed to support Canadian culture and art, purchased three hundred paintings from David Milne for the foundation.
Milne's family moved to Uxbridge, Ontario where he finally had his own studio. This change in his life also influenced his artistic style. David Milne wrote: “… Each painter has its own ways of launching in the adventures in shape, color, texture, and space… I mostly fall into them.”
Milne incorporated new iconography in his works: subjects beyond reality, allegorical figures, Biblical references. He delved into his past and his identity as an artist, using the subject matter as a means of reflection.
In his last painting "Tempter with Cosmetics" (it remained unfinished on his easel) angels, like children, play with cosmetics, high-heeled shoes, bought from a wandering salesman...
On November 14, 1952, Milne suffered a stroke. He could not paint anymore. His health was deteriorating. After a series of new strokes, on December 26, 1953, David Milne died in a hospital in Bancroft, Ontario.
His lifetime production, after the destruction of many paintings throughout his career, stands at close to 3,000, with an equal number of drawings and prints.
Milne's art has remained captivating even after more than half a century since his passing. Instead of distancing us, it has drawn us closer to the artist, his way of thinking, and his distinctive artistic style. David Milne's exhibitions attract a significant crowd and the museum halls displaying his paintings are always bustling with spectators.
In 2012, the Milne Study Center opened at the Art Gallery of Ontario.
Sources: Library and Archives Canada; National Gallery of Canada; Art Gallery of Ontario; The McMichael Canadian Art Collection; Art Windsor-Essex; Winnipeg Art Gallery; Art Museum of University of Toronto; Agnes Etherington Art Centre
The Canadian Encyclopedia Wikipedia;
Milroy, Sarah & Dejardin, Ian A. C., eds. (2018). David Milne: Modern Painting. London: Philip Wilson Publishers; Murray Whyte. Paint it black: The dark landscapes of David Milne at the McMichael Collection; King, James. Inner Places. The Life of David Milne. Dundurn Press. 2015 Ganz, James A. Jewel City: Art from San Francisco's Panama-Pacific International Exposition. University of California Press. 2015
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