MILTON J. BURNS

One of America’s best known marine artists of the late 19th century, Milton J. Burns was born in Mt. Gilead, Ohio, in 1853. In 1869, at the age of 16, he accompanied William Bradford on the master’s famous Arctic Expedition. The experience affected Burns so greatly that he dedicated himself to marine art and illustration and spent most of his life as an adventurer. After a brief period of study at the National Academy and in Paris, he and a group of fellow adventurers founded the Salmagundi Club in 1871. He spent most of his time on sailboats, along the Maine coast at Monhegan and Grand Manan, and also at the Grand Banks and the North Sea, doing illustrations for Harper’s, London Graphic, Century, Literary Digest and others. He also lived among the fisherfolk of England, France, Norway, the Canadian Maritimes, Gloucester, the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, and the West Indies.