Frank Myers Boggs (1855-1926)
"Venice"
A stunning pastel of Venice of which Frank Boggs was best known. Signed lower right and titled "Venice" lower left.
SALES HISTORY: Frank Boggs is a highly listed artist with strong high demand sales history. For example, Pont St Michel sold at Sotheby's October 1989 for $49,500 and most recently sold Place De la Concorde, Paris at Shannon's in June 2006 for $29, 875
Size: 10.5x13.5" unframed, 22x25" framed
Bio:
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. He was?best known for his scenes of Venice and Paris. 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, in 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-Leon Gerome. Ironically our other Venice piece by Walter Brown ALSO studied under Jean-Leon Gerome.
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.
