George Milton

George Milton, renowned artist and gentleman, dies

By Mark Hinson
DEMOCRAT SENIOR WRITER

The Tallahassee arts community has lost a true original.

Prominent Tallahassee artist George Milton, who was the first painter to have a one-man exhibition at The LeMoyne Art Foundation when it opened in 1964, died late Friday night of a kidney infection and complications. He was 86.

Milton was also a retired Florida State University anthropology professor, a member of the Air Force during World War II, a world traveler, a scholar, an art historian, a voracious reader, a collector, a quick wit and one of the most charming Southern gentlemen ever to come from North Florida. He is survived by his sister, Elizabeth Milton of Daytona Beach.

"He was always inventive; he was the most creative person I've ever known," friend and former LeMoyne director Richard Puckett said. "He had more one-man shows at LeMoyne than anyone else. He was so prolific, and each show had a different theme. He switched styles a lot. He was restless and always wanting to try new things."

"He had such a purity of spirit, yet he also had an outrageous wit, and they both worked together somehow," said Nancy Smith Fichter, friend and founder of FSU's dance department. "I would say I was going to stop by his house for half an hour, and it was always two hours minimum. I would be rolling on the floor with laughter. I'm really going to miss him."

"He was a shy person, but he knew how to make people like him instantly," Puckett said. "He really was one of the most charming people you've ever met."

In 1972, Milton became friends with legendary actress-singer Lotte Lenya when she visited FSU to star in a production of "The Threepenny Opera." The artist helped Lenya apply her elaborate stage makeup, and the two hit it off.

"He even got Lotte to come to his classroom and sing 'Mack the Knife' for his students," Elizabeth Milton said.

Born in Marianna, Milton loved to recall stories of his childhood - which included a bout with polio and a stay in a sanitatium, where he and a friend published a hospital newsletter filled with fictitious reports, all illustrated by Milton. He was a direct descendant of Gov. John Milton, who served in office during the Civil War. The Southern upbringing also left Milton with a distinctive, lilting Southern accent.

"I sound like I eat Spanish moss and magnolias for breakfast," Milton joked in an interview with the Democrat.

During the late '30s, Milton studied at the Alabama Polytechnic Institute at Auburn. He was stationed near Washington during his stint in the Air Force and studied painting at the prestigious Corcoran School of Art in Washington after the war.

In 1954, after studying with famed artist and professor Karl Zerbe, Milton received a master's degree in painting and art history from FSU. He began teaching in the anthropology department. Milton also took many trips around the world - from Europe to the Middle East to South America - sifting through archaeological sites.

Once, when he returned from a research trip to England, Milton wrote the Queen of England, complimenting her on having such a polite nation. The queen wrote him a thank-you letter in return.

Milton received a bachelor's degree from FSU's creative-writing program in 1980, the same year he retired from teaching at the university.

His colorful art also drew inspiration from everywhere. His subjects included characters from the Bible, writers from the Bloomsbury Group, birds, dancers, circus performers, still lifes and much more. He once did a series of copies of famous masterpieces using only crayons.

"A painting is a record of an individuals's personal and vicarious experiences and sensations which he records symbolically and representatively through such media as line, color, form and texture as they are guided by his conscious and subconscious mind," Milton once wrote of his art.

"He was very generous in giving his works to benefit LeMoyne," Puckett said. "He was very giving."

No public service is planned for Milton. Shortly before his death, the artist asked that contributions in his memory be made to The LeMoyne Art Foundation, 125 N. Gadsden St.