When I was ten years old, I begged my mother not to throw away a charcoal drawing which she viewed as seriously depressing---and I found deeply inspiring. That same drawing, “Young German Boy,” drawn by my ancestor George Van Millett, is now featured in a new book by Lynn Mackle, Returning to the Heartland: Rediscovering George Van Millett. Little was I to know that the German boy would be the first piece in my own extensive art collection.
During his lifetime, Van was, as Mackle reports, “Dean of Kansas City artists for more than half a century.” He was “instrumental in helping to form the nucleus of the Kansas City Art Institute, and played a significant role in laying the groundwork for launching the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Millett produced an extensive oeuvre that was multifaceted and rich. From bucolic landscapes and evocative genre scenes to finely observed portraits and impressionistic cityscapes, the artist painted what he knew and loved.”
After an extensive education in Europe, he came home again to Kansas City with the lifetime goal of bringing arts and culture to his Wild West home town, dominated by commerce and industry.
Mackle has also organized a major retrospective of his work in Missouri’s Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art, opening late September. (Five of my collected Millett works will be featured in the show.)
Extended Millett family members are coming from all around the country to see the rediscovery of Van’s work. My sister Louise Mohardt and I will be joining the week long festivities. If you look closely at Van’s own self-portrait you will see a great deal of startling resemblance to both Louise and me!
