Sunday, September 18, 2011

George Van Millett, Dean of the Arts in Kansas City for 50 years---REDISCOVERED!


 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!

3 comments:

  1. Ms Caroline Dunlop Millett.

    I think you are a cousin of mine! My father, George Van Millett, Jr (later the II when my older brother was born) is the son of George Van Millett, Sr, the painter from Kansas City, Missouri. My dad, George Van Millett, called Van at home by his KCMO family, and by the nickname "Zip" by his friends during his USA Army days, married my mother, Ethel (Sally to her friends) Lenore Blaine in 1947 or so. Col George V. Millett and my mother had two children, my brother George Van Millett, III and myself, William Mayhue Millett. Dad also had a child from his first marriage who's name was Nancy (see this link for family background )

    My email is wmayhue7@aol.com and I would be interested in talking to you!

    Cheers!

    Bill Millett

    ReplyDelete
  2. Humm! Looks like my links to the information regarding my parents did not get accepted by your filter. Let me try it this way: Replace the words "WORLD WIDE WEB" with the letters "www"

    http://WORLD WIDE WEB.nctimes.com/news/local/article_6ec50a30-d499-53ca-95e8-7c17b1e780e1.html
    and http://WORLD WIDE WEB.usairborne.be/17/17_507_txt_us.htm

    This will help establish my bona fides.

    I would be greatly interested in talking to you about our mutual relatives!

    Cheers!

    Bill Millett

    ReplyDelete