John Milnes-Smith was a painter of abstracts.
Born in Middlesex, from 1934-38 Milnes-Smith studied at the Architectural Association, London, specialising in historic buildings. From 1940-44 war service took Milnes-Smith to East Asia, including Burma. After the War, he worked in private practice as an architect and became a specialist in planning regulations, specifically in the field of the conservation and preservation.
His early work from the 1940s was representational, though on moving towards abstraction he was chosen for the 'British Abstract Art' exhibition at Gimpel Fils (1951), the first of many appearances in the 1950s. He was admitted to the London Group in 1952. Milnes-Smith also took part in the influential 'Metavisual, Tachiste and Abstract' exhibition at the Redfern Gallery, London, in 1957. By 1959, he had opened his first solo show, at New Vision Centre, for which Ian Forbes White wrote that "the forms of Milnes-Smith's paintings are held together by a framework of black lines, and for the most part squares of luminous colours positively flying out of a background of cloudy greys or ochre browns".
Milnes-Smith last exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 1998. His personal collection included works by Victor Pasmore, Prunella Clough, Paule Vézelay, Kumi Sugai and Stanley William Hayter.
