John Everett Millais was born in Southampton, Hampshire, on 8 June 1829. His father was a man of independent means from an old Jersey family, while his mother came from a family of prosperous Southampton saddlers. Millais grew up in Southampton, Jersey and Dinan, in Brittany, before moving to London, in 1838, to study art.
Initially, he attended Henry Sass’s independent drawing academy. Then, in 1840, he entered the Royal Academy Schools, where he revealed his outstanding talent, winning several prizes, including a silver medal for drawing from the antique (1843) and a gold medal for historical painting (1847). In 1846, he began to exhibit regularly at the Royal Academy. However, his developing friendship with fellow student, William Holman Hunt, led, in 1848, to the foundation of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which specifically rejected academic values in favour of a Romantic naturalism. A number of the works that he designated ‘Pre-Raphaelite’ met with controversy, but A Huguenot, of 1852, proved very popular with the public, in both its painted and engraved forms. His ensuing election as an associate of the Royal Academy, in the following year, led effectively to the dissolution of the Brotherhood.
In the summer of 1853, Millais visited Scotland with John and Effie Ruskin, Ruskin having been the critic who had most championed Pre-Raphaelitism. However, during the trip, Millais and Effie fell in love; as a result, Effie had her marriage to Ruskin annulled and married Millais on 3 July 1855. They would have eight children. The newlyweds settled in Perth, staying first at Annat Lodge and then with Effie’s parents at their home, Bowerswell. At this time, Millais painted distinctive symbolic images, such as Autumn Leaves (1855-56), and worked extensively as an illustrator.
From early in his career, Millais had demonstrated a mastery of draughtsmanship, through his illustrations for the Pre-Raphaelite magazine, The Germ (1850), and an unpublished series of modern moral studies (1851-55). In 1857, he confirmed his power as an illustrator through his contributions to the Moxon edition of the poems of Tennyson. Then, during the 1860s, he made significant contributions to the leading new periodicals, most notably The Parables of Our Lord (in Good Words, 1863) and his illustrations to novels by Anthony Trollope (in The Cornhill Magazine, 1860-69). The latter have been considered ‘arguably the best of their kind done for a novelist in the entire 19th century’ (Simon Houfe, The Dictionary of British Book Illustrators and Caricaturists 1800-1914, Woodbridge: Antique Collectors’ Club, 1981 (revised ed), page 391).
By early in the 1860s, Millais had returned to London, and reverted in his painting to the theme of ill-fated love; the resulting works proved highly popular, and earned him a greater degree of success than any other English painter. This growing status led, in 1865, to his election as a Royal Academician. Though he ceased to work regularly as an illustrator at the close of the 1860s, he did expand his repertoire as a painter, producing large-scale Scottish landscapes, inspired by holiday destinations, and establishing a highly fashionable portrait practice. The first English artist to be made a Baronet (1885), he was elected President of the Royal Academy a decade later (1896). However, he died of throat cancer soon after, at his home at 2 Palace Gate, Kensington, on 13 August 1896, and was buried in St Paul’s Cathedral. Effie died a year later. In January to March 1898, the Royal Academy mounted a memorial exhibition.
His work is represented in numerous public collections, including the collections of the British Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, Tate and the V&A; and the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford), Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery; the Lady Lever Art Gallery (Port Sunlight), Manchester Art Gallery and the Walker Art Gallery (Liverpool).
Further reading:
Malcolm Warner, The Drawings of John Everett Millais, Cambridge: Fitzwilliam Museum, 1979; Malcolm Warner, ‘Millais, Sir John Everett (b Southampton, 8 June 1829; d London, 13 Aug 1896)’, Jane Turner (ed), The Dictionary of Art, London: Macmillan, 1996, vol 21, pages 601-604; Malcolm Warner, ‘Millais, Sir John Everett, first baronet (1829-1896)’, H C G Matthew and Brian Harrison (eds), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, vol 38, pages 176-182
