The 85-year-old artist, who attended Howard University and received an art fellowship in 1947 to the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, chaired the art department at Bennett College in Greensboro three different times—from 1947 to 1950; 1952 to 1953; and 1956 to 1969. While studying in Paris at the Académie Julian, outside the confines of the racially segregated South, he truly developed as an artist. McMillan described this time in an interview with Sherman, "After my experiences in the U.S. Navy, I knew that portraiture was the direction in which I wanted to go. I wanted to combine that form with my experience and others in America. That was a part of my drive in Paris. What I began to understand most clearly about my life, especially after returning from the service, was the impact of racism. My two years in Paris...where I was accepted as an individual and as a black artist, marked the first time I was able to meet many others from different parts of the world. I learned about their living conditions and hardships. And my views about injustice and the place it occupied in a large scope of universal humanism was born."Labels: Academie Julian, African-American Fine Art, African-American painter, Bennett College, James McMillan, Paris, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture