David Brown Milne (1882 – 1953) – Canadian artist who served as a Canadian war artist in Britain, Belgium and northern France during WWI

David Brown Milne was born near Paisley in Scotland on 8th January 1882. He was the last of ten children born to Scottish immigrant parents who went to live in Canada. His early education was in Paisley, followed by high school in Walkerton; Ontario, Canada. He performed well in school and soon after graduation began teaching in a country school near Paisley, Ontario*. During 1902 and 1903 he studied art through correspondence, eventually deciding to move to New York City in 1903 at the age of 21.

In New York, he spent two years (and a third year of night school) studying at the Art Students League. He came to know both American and European Impressionism, Post Impressionism, and Fauvism, modern approaches that helped shape his own style. A significant measure of this early success was his participation in two of North America’s most important exhibitions of art of the early 20th century: the famous Armory Show in 1913 (seen in New York, Boston, and Chicago) where he had five paintings exhibited and the Panama-Pacific International Exposition held in San Francisco in 1915.[5] He was represented by the N. E. Montross Gallery (the same gallery showed 'The Eight' or Ashcan School artists).

In 1912, he married Frances May (known as Patsy) and later they moved to Boston Corners, a small hamlet where he painted with oils and watercolours. 

David  left Boston Corners in 1917 for basic training in Toronto for the First World War. He was stationed in Quebec and then quarantined in England for a month, during which time the war ended. Because of his background as an artist, he was asked to complete paintings and drawings as a war artist and produced artworks of battlefields in France and Belgium as well as of soldiers in Kinmel Park Camp in Bodelwyddan, Denbighshire, North Wales, near Abergele and Rhyl. The camp was built in 1915 to train troops during the First World War and was later used to house troops at the end of the conflict. A riot broke out in the camp among Canadian forces in 1919, concerning repatriation, leading to the deaths of several soldiers.

On 14th November 1952, David Brown Milne had a stroke. Over the next year he continued to suffer from small strokes and died in the hospital in Bancroft, Ontario, on 26th December 1953.

"The Cloth Hall, Ypres"

Posted by the Canadian Expeditionary Force Research Group 1914-1919 on the Artists of the First World War Facebook page on 16th January 2026.

Sources:

Artists of the First World War Facebook Page, Wikipedia and Find my Past