Francis Davis Millet
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Francis Davis Millet (name sometimes given as "Francis David Millet"; November 3, 1846 - April 15, 1912) was an American painter and writer and one of those who died in the sinking of the RMS Titanic.
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[edit] Early life
Millet a correspondent for the "Advertiser" at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition.
[edit] Artistic life
In 1876, Millet returned to Boston to paint murals at Trinity Church in Boston with John LaFarge. 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.
A well-regarded American Academic Realist, Millet was close friends with Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Mark Twain, both of whom were at his 1879 marriage to Elizabeth Merrill in Paris, France. He 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 a Director of the American Academy in Rome. In addition, he sat on the advisory committee of the National Gallery of Art. He was decorations director for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois in 1893.
He translated Tolstoy and also wrote essays and short stories. Among his publications are Capillary Crime and Other Stories (1892) and Expedition to the Philippines (1899). He was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects.
On April 10, 1912, Francis Millet boarded RMS Titanic at Southampton for New York. He was last seen helping women and children into lifeboats. His body was recovered after the sinking by the cable boat Mackay-Bennett and was buried at East Bridgewater Central Cemetery.
In 1913 a fountain was erected in Washington, D.C. in memory of Millet and his friend Archibald W. Butt.
[edit] Literature
- Beckwith, Baxter, Maynard, Blashfield, and Coffin, Art and Progress, volume iii (Washington, 1912)
