Robert James Mills Jr. (1920-1981) American, Original Watercolor on Paper. Beautiful image of a man in a sailboat on a tranquil lake. Signed bottom left. Framed. 

Condition: Spotting throughout. Possible water damage. Overall fine. 

Overall Size: 20 1/4 x 24 1/4 x 1 in. 

Sight Size: 13 x 20 1/2 in. 

Robert James Mills Jr. was born in Columbia, South Carolina in 1920. As a youth he developed a love of watercolors, and received a scholarship to the Booth Bay Harbor School of Arts in Maine when he was 19. He studied there under Ted Kautzky and Faber Birren, heavily inspired by the works of Andrew Wyeth, and his love of the area and the coastal scenes lasted all his life. For nearly every summer for the rest of his life (aside from his military service) he traveled there, painting wildlife, landscapes, and the rocky coast of New England. In 1941 Mills entered Pratt Institute to study commercial art under William Longear, but left to enlist after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December. He served as a combat artist in World War II, where he met and married his wife Rose, a performer with the USO. In 1945 they returned to Columbia, where they had two daughters and Mills began studying under Edmund Yaghjian at the University of South Carolina. This led to him becoming a professor there himself in the 1960s and 70s, while also studying mechanical design and opening the RPM Photoengraving Company. Many of his students went on to become successful regional artists, and his tempera and watercolor works were routinely exhibited in local galleries and the Columbia Museum of Art. Tragically, Mills succumbed to heart failure unexpectedly in 1981, and since then his work has been more and more sought after by public and private collectors, with major collections at the Gibbs Museum in Charleston and the High Museum in Atlanta, Georgia.

Spotting throughout. Possible water damage. Overall fine.