Soon after the war, Mills turned to portraiture in oils, mainly working from photographs, including portraits of deceased sitters. This seems to have started by about 1950 (from the earliest dated ones) and many were done through an association with the Hans Galleries at 40 Duke Street, St James’s, London. These were set up by Godfrey Hayman, who mounted their first portraits exhibition for the Festival of Britain in 1951, and specialized in seeking commissions for boardroom portraits of ‘men of enterprise’, and similar institutional, industrial and armed forces figures. They were painted by a stable of artists, of whom Mills was one for over 25 years, though he also advertised individually, for example as a ‘Portrait painter-photographer’ in the Tatler in 1961, and as late as 1975 in Country Life. His portraits appear to be good likenesses, and sometimes dramatic by choice of background or lighting. Even when not wholly from photographs, however, they are essentially oil versions of them for a conservative clientele.

By 1956, when the first of their two sons was born, Mills and his wife were living at 99 London Road, Burgess Hill, Sussex. Their second son was born in 1961. By 1980 they had moved locally to a flat over a shop (49a Station Road), though ‘Art’ after Mills’s name in the 1984 telephone directory indicates he was still active and the fact that his wife was registered as a company director suggests ongoing business there. He died on 16th May 1996 and was buried, or his ashes may have been, with his sister Margery at Ocklynge Cemetery, Eastbourne. The headstone there also commemorates their other siblings who died between 1986 and 1999 and were all cremated. His widow subsequently remained at Station Road and died in 2019.

Summarised from Art UK's Art Detective discussion 'Could we identify the artist of this and two other portraits on Art UK that appear to have the same signature?'