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Frank Boggs
1855–1926
BirthplaceSpringfield, Ohio, United States of America
Death placeMeudon, France
BiographyIn the course of his successful career as an American expatriate painter, Frank Boggs created marine, harbor, wharf, and city views of sites in France and southern England. Son of a newspaper executive, Boggs was born in Ohio but grew up in New York City. He began his career at the age of seventeen as an illustrator for the popular periodical Harper’s Weekly; he also worked as a theatrical scene painter. To obtain further training, he departed in 1876 for Paris, where he studied with the academic painter of historical subjects Jean-Léon Gerôme (1824–1904). Recognizing that his pupil was not suited to depicting the figure, which was essential to history painting, Gerôme advised him to paint landscapes. During the next two years, Boggs painted harbor scenes in the French ports of Dieppe, Honfleur, and Grandcamp. Throughout his career he was also drawn to street scenes and architectural views.
Boggs returned to the United States around 1878. Working mainly on New York’s Shelter Island, he exhibited his paintings at the prestigious National Academy of Design, as well as at the more progressive Society of American Artists. With their loose brushwork and attention to atmosphere, marks of the most advanced European style, Boggs’s works were poorly received in New York, and he left again for Paris in 1880. That year, he began showing his work at the prestigious annual exhibition known as the Paris Salon, and his landscapes, painted in Holland and England as well as France, soon attracted attention both in London and in Paris. In 1882 and again in 1883, for example, the French government purchased his paintings for national museums.
In the course of his career Boggs made frequent return visits to America and also traveled widely in Europe and northern Africa in search of subjects. France, however, remained his adopted home. In the late 1880s, he became acquainted with several French impressionist artists, who used bright colors laid down in distinct brushstrokes to capture shifting effects of light and atmosphere. Boggs was also influenced by the breezy harbor scenes of the Dutch painter Johann Barthold Jongkind (1819–1891), with whom he worked.
In the 1880s and 1890s, Boggs exhibited widely in Europe at international expositions; he also sent his paintings to exhibitions in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago. He was awarded a silver medal for a work displayed at Chicago’s World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893. Nonetheless, during his lifetime Boggs received greater recognition in Europe than at home. He traveled less after 1905, when he purchased a house in Paris, and in his last decades he turned increasingly from oil painting to watercolor painting and to etching, a fine-art print medium. Boggs died just after receiving word that he had been awarded the French Legion of Honor, the most exalted recognition accorded by the French state.
Boggs returned to the United States around 1878. Working mainly on New York’s Shelter Island, he exhibited his paintings at the prestigious National Academy of Design, as well as at the more progressive Society of American Artists. With their loose brushwork and attention to atmosphere, marks of the most advanced European style, Boggs’s works were poorly received in New York, and he left again for Paris in 1880. That year, he began showing his work at the prestigious annual exhibition known as the Paris Salon, and his landscapes, painted in Holland and England as well as France, soon attracted attention both in London and in Paris. In 1882 and again in 1883, for example, the French government purchased his paintings for national museums.
In the course of his career Boggs made frequent return visits to America and also traveled widely in Europe and northern Africa in search of subjects. France, however, remained his adopted home. In the late 1880s, he became acquainted with several French impressionist artists, who used bright colors laid down in distinct brushstrokes to capture shifting effects of light and atmosphere. Boggs was also influenced by the breezy harbor scenes of the Dutch painter Johann Barthold Jongkind (1819–1891), with whom he worked.
In the 1880s and 1890s, Boggs exhibited widely in Europe at international expositions; he also sent his paintings to exhibitions in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago. He was awarded a silver medal for a work displayed at Chicago’s World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893. Nonetheless, during his lifetime Boggs received greater recognition in Europe than at home. He traveled less after 1905, when he purchased a house in Paris, and in his last decades he turned increasingly from oil painting to watercolor painting and to etching, a fine-art print medium. Boggs died just after receiving word that he had been awarded the French Legion of Honor, the most exalted recognition accorded by the French state.