American Art Collaborative

Francis Davis Millet obtained his master's degree in language and literature at Harvard University, and then received art training at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium. His murals, paintings, designs, writings, and war correspondence led him across Europe before he settled in the Broadway village of Worcestershire, England. Millet still found time in his travels to take part in many notable arts institutions and expositions, including the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. While on business for the American Academy in Rome, Millet died en route to the United States in the sinking of the RMS Titanic, in 1912. In honor of Millet and his friend Archibald Butt, a military aide to President William Howard Taft and journalist who also died aboard the Titanic, a memorial fountain and monument were dedicated in October 1913 in the President’s Park of the White House, in Washington, D.C.