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South Florida mourns the loss of African American Artist Charles Norman Mills
By Charles Moseley
Originally posted 11/5/2009
African American Artist Charles Norman Mills grew up in Harlem, N.Y. during its heyday when such luminaries of the arts as Gordon Parks, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes and Marian Anderson who all helped to shape cultural elements which reflected the Black Experience during the 20th Century. Mills transformed that Black experience through his art – bringing it to life on canvas. The Black Renaissance Man who was raised in Harlem – who adopted South Florida as home, died on Oct. 20, 2009. He was 88.
Local artist Jerome Davis remembered Mills as a man who exemplified the essence of being a Black artist for the contributions he made to him personally as well as professionally.
“Charles Mills for me was a man among men artistically to me. He helped me secure a studio space amongst artists where he also had rented his own studio space. He would visit my studio space often when I was there to talk shop. Often when I arrived at the studio he would already be there and I could hear the jazz music he loved so much, through the walls of his studio. He was a living breathing reminder for me of the Harlem Renaissance which he spoke of at a reception of his art at the African American Research Library. On one evening at home I was watching a documentary on Marcus Garvey and I saw Charles in it giving his impressions of Marcus Garvey.”
Local playwright, director, actor as well as artist, Tony Thompson joined Davis in his praise of Mills. All of them have had their artworks displayed at the African American Research Library and Cultural Center.
“I have known Charles Mills for what seems forever, but actually was only about15 years. I called him “Sir Charles” because he had a very noble air about him, even though he was very down to earth. We were close friends because of our mutual love for the Arts. I think that I first met him at the Old Dillard Museum and we worked very closely with the African World Artist Collective of South Florida, a group of artists of all types. He was the most sincere and caring person that I have ever met. I loved to hear him tell the stories of his life about Duke Ellington playing piano for his son’s classmates at an elementary school birthday party; meeting Langston Hughes and taking him to lunch for the New York library where he came to speak; his father’s Marcus Garvey connection, etc. Charles Mills will never be forgotten.”
The Harlem native displayed a love of art as a youth where he attended a school for the arts in Manhattan, NY. Mills reportedly became engrossed in Black History during numerous visits to a repository located on 135th Street which housed a collection of books on Black life in America, which later would become part of the rich tradition of African American culture found within the Arthur Schaumburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem.
Mills was a veteran of the United States Army where he put his artistic talents to practical use serving as a medical illustrator at the Veteran’s Administration Medical Center in Brooklyn. He spent the next 20 years engaged as a medical books illustrator before studying fine art at The Career School of Commercial Illustration in New York and at the Brooklyn Museum. His taste for fine art resulted in his works being shown in art galleries throughout New York City.
In 1985 Mills took his show on the road moving to South Florida which he adopted as his own and had an immediate impact on the cultural fabric of the area most notably as result of the mural which depicts the history of Black Life which appears at the east entrants of Sistrunk Boulevard. He is most noted for the work which the City of Fort Lauderdale commissioned him to produce. He received numerous awards for his art including the distinction as a recipient of the African American Achiever by the Jim Moran Foundation in 2009.
Mills is survived by his wife Thelma, two daughters, five grandchildren and seven greatgrand children.
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