1933 -

Mills is a Londoner, who started his art training at the age of 15. Before taking up a place at the Royal College of Art, he spent two years in National Service, as a PT instructor. At the Royal College (1956--60), he studied under John Skeaping, and decided to devote himself to figure sculpture. Mills’s preferred material is bronze, and he has written seven books on sculptural techniques. Married to a dancer, and a keen diver himself, Mills has always been concerned with physical dynamics, movement and balance. He lives in the country in Hertfordshire, where he does some of his own casting. His public commissions started in 1964, with a series of relief panels of William Blake, for William Blake House, commissioned by the City of Westminster. More recent commissions include the National Firefighters Memorial (1991) in Old Change Court in the City of London, a statue of the footballer, Jackie Millburn (1995), for Ashington, Northumberland, London River Man for Docklands, and the Memorial to the Women of World War II in Whitehall. In 1986 Mills was elected President of the Royal Society of British Sculptors.