Journal Article

A Postscript to the David B. Milne Biography and Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings

Silcox, David P

2015

Overview

After my biography of David Milne (1881–1953), Painting Place: The Life and Work of David B. Milne, was published in 1996, and just after David B. Milne: Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings was launched in 1998, a crucial fact about Milne came to light. I've been sitting on it for the past decade and a half, partly having been distracted by other interests and activities, partly believing that it wouldn't change fundamental things, partly being uneasy about not having revealed immediately a truth that is pertinent, and partly being uncertain how to present it. Many large projects – and the Milne Project was one – are expected to produce supplements or updates, since continuing studies by original researchers or others often turf up new facts or material, but a Milne supplement was never considered, even though several works by him have surfaced in the interim. The shock came in a letter I received from James T. Angus, who, as a young boy, knew David Milne when Milne lived alone in a tiny cabin at Six Mile Lake in southern Muskoka from 1933 to 1939. The Angus family lived at Big Chute, a few miles away. Big Chute was the site of one of the proposed locks on the Trent-Severn river system that connected the Severn River to Georgian Bay. The lock was never built, however, but to make the waterway functional, a short rail device, managed by James's father Scotty Angus during the summers, moved boats around the otherwise impassable rapid.

• Publisher: Journal of Canadian Art History
• Subject: Art history / Autobiographical literature / Biographies / Complete works / Milne, David B (1882-1953) / Painters