Dora Atwater Millikin grew up in Little Compton, Rhode Island. She graduated with the “Senior Art Prize” from The Stoneleigh-Burnham School ( Greenfield, Massachusetts) in 1979. Four years later she graduated from Newcomb College ( Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana) with a BFA degree in Painting, Drawing and Art History.

In the Fall of 1998, she sought a more structured and academic art program and enrolled as a full time student at the Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts (Old Lyme, Connecticut). She graduated in May of 2002 with a BFA degree in Painting.

Dora is an artist member of The Providence Art Club and is currently painting with groups at the Lyme Art Association in Old Lyme, Connecticut. She is represented by several galleries in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Her paintings have been included in juried exhibitions at The Copley Society in Boston (2001, 2002), The Newport Art Museum in Newport, Rhode Island (several years), The Providence Art Club (several years) as well as other institutions. Her work is represented in private collections in Europe and the United States.

At the National Arts Club in NYC, Dora was the recipient of the Edwin Gould Foundation Award (2002).This award placed her fifth overall for that year in the Club’s annual student exhibition featuring art schools in NYC and surrounding towns. Upon graduating from The Lyme Academy in 2002, she received the John Stobart Fellowship. More recently, in 2005 she won top honors at the Annual Non-Members Exhibition at the Salmagundi Club in NYC with the Joseph Hartley Memorial Award for Oil.

Dora continues to participate in local and National painting competitions and exhibitions (both solo and group), and serves on the Board for the Art League of Rhode Island as their Exhibitions Chair.