Frank Myers Boggs

Westminster Abbey, London

Late 19th Century

Frank Boggs was a master of cloudy skies in landscape paintings, but was more strongly attracted to the soft light of misty mornings and rainy afternoons than the brilliant sunlight of his Impressionist peers. Contemporary American critics tended to view Boggs as an Impressionist, especially when he exhibited in New York early in his career. But although his brush became loose and free and his palette lightened as he matured, the artist never completely adopted Impressionistic methods. He was known and appreciated for delicate and subtle harmonies of blue, gray and green. In this respect, his style has sometimes been compared to the Tonalism of James McNeill Whistler. Boggs was born in Springfield, Ohio, on December 6, 1855. While still young, he was brought to New York City where his father was a newspaper executive. At age seventeen he took his first job, as a wood engraver at "Harpers" magazine. At age twenty-one, he decided to go to Paris to study stage design, having received encouragement from a French designer whom he had met. Finding, however, no one in Paris to instruct him in his newly chosen profession, he enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where he studied painting under Jean-Léon Gérome. In 1923 Boggs became a French citizen. Three years later, preparations were underway to award him the Legion of Honor. When informed of this coveted recognition by his adopted country, he expressed great delight. Sadly, Frank Meyer Boggs died, however, the day before the award was made public on August 8, 1926.