In
1944 Eleanor Milne enrolled in the School of Art and Design, Montréal
Museum of Fine Arts. The school, which was founded by the Art Association
of Montréal featured an impressive staff of Canadian artists, including
Arthur Lismer, Jacques de
Tonnancour and Gordon Webber. The Art Association's first art classes
were held in 1880 in two vacant shops on the Saint Catherine side of the
Art Gallery that the association had just opened on Phillips Square. By 1883
twenty-five students were enrolled. Art classes were moved to the museum's
new building on Sherbrooke Street in October 1912. With the opening of
l’École des Beaux-Arts de Montréal in 1923, the Association
School fell into financial difficulty, reduced to teaching only elementary
classes. Carnegie Corporation grants in 1937 and 1941 allowed the association
to hire Anne Savage as an instructor, and Arthur Lismer as Director. (Lismer
retired in 1968, and in May 1977 the School of Art and Design permanently
closed its doors.)
In 1943 the association re-organized itself into the School of Art and Design, Montréal Museum of Fine Arts. Enrolment had reached 500 students in 1944, with a staff of fourteen. The School of Art and Design offered a three-year diploma. Milne studied basic design and won the Art Association Scholarship and the Principal’s Prize. After Eleanor Milne single-handedly arranged it, Arthur Lismer agreed to allow her to take courses at McGill's Laboratory of Anatomy concurrently with her studies at the School of Art and Design. Lismer could see the wisdom of Milne's desire for formal anatomical training. At the end of her second year, Lismer told Eleanor Milne that the School of Art and Design could teach her nothing further. He urged her to travel to England for further study, which she did in 1946.