Brief biography of John Everett Millais

John Everett Millais (1829-1896) is a distinguished British painter from the mid-nineteenth century. Millais was born in Southampton to John Millais, self-professed “gentleman”, and Mary Evamy, daughter of a Southampton merchant and he from a young age showed a prodigious talent for drawing.

His family moved to London to foster his artistic talent and at the age of 11 he became the youngest-ever student at the Royal Academy Schools.

He is celebrated for his prolific career, but is best known for his founding of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848, along with fellow British artists William Holman Hunt and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

The Brotherhood was founded in opposition to contemporary academic painting, which the group believed was the result of the example set by Raphael and which had dominated the schools and academies since his time.

Inspired by the principles of realism and truth to nature, Millais painted some of his best-known works including Christ in the House of his Parents (1849–50) and Mariana (1851). In breaking with painterly conventions of the time, these and other Pre-Raphaelite works were seen as radical and received both criticism and praise. Millais died at home in 1896 and is buried at Artists Corner.
Brief biography of John Everett Millais