Like his father, Joe Milne, John Maclauchlan Milne was primarily a landscape painter. He was born in Edinburgh and studied at the Edinburgh College of Art, moving afterwards to Dundee. During the Great War, he served in the RFC. After the War, he returned briefly to Dundee before leaving again to study in Paris. He married a French woman and spent much time in the south of France with her at Lavardin, surviving on a stipend from the Dundee marmalade manufacturers, Keillers, in return for some of his work. With the outbreak of the Second World War, he returned to Scotland and settled finally on Arran, where he died, on 28th October 1957.

His visits to Cassis on the Cote d'Azur had brought him into contact with among others, Cadell and Peploe and there is much of the Colourist about his artistic style. His work is painted in a broad and colourful manner reminiscent of Cezanne and Van Gogh, as well as his compatriots, the Colourists. The lessons he'd learnt on the continent were applied to the familiar landscapes of his homeland in Perthshire and on the East coast to beautiful effect.