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About Frank M. Boggs
In 1929, the French art critic ArsPne Alexandre wrote a comprehensive book on Frank Meyers Boggs. Since that time, Boggs’s reputation has dwindled. Perhaps, then, it is best to introduce Frank Boggs as he was seen by his astute contemporary:
He could be considered among those rapid, spontaneous, impulsive painters, and hence an impressionist. He would certainly merit this name more than the patient but eager (and magnificently georgic) *Camille Pissarro, or the great and severe classic *Degas. However, it is a question of palette and of `grouping’ which would explain why at no time would one be apt to consider Boggs in this school. The little, heroic band of impressionists in 1870, attacked on all sides, did not dare to weaken itself by new recruits of Boggs’s type. He was a foreigner, an independent. He was shown at the annual salons, and therefore easily confused with the ordinary; then, later, he was taken over by the dealers; hence he was, at the same time, too much one apart, and yet not different enough.1
Considering the stylistic criteria of impressionism during *Claude Monet’s lifetime, Boggs’s spontaneous, but, at times, dark manner kept him from being classified as a true impressionist. Although he was not truly a *tonalist, Boggs also circumvented impressionism by avoiding bright color and by limiting the dissolution of form into shimmering space. His reticent impressionism is closer to *Boudin’s than to Monet’s. He has also been compared to Jongkind. Actually, in his insistence to maintain clarity of form, he allied himself more closely with the American brand of impressionism than the French; Boggs used light primarily to reveal structure and form, an approach characteristic of American impressionism. Perhaps the overall flavor of Boggs’s work was best summed up by Milton Brown:Of greater interest than the academic impressionists, are several lesser known painters who seem to have combined early impressionism as it developed out of the *Barbizon School with the native *plein air tradition of `luminism.’ There is a modest charm and a naturalistic veracity in the work of such painters as Frank Boggs.
It seems doubtful that future art historians will carve out a niche in the façade of impressionism that is much different from that created by Alexandre when he wrote that Boggs "will always be found. . . outside the real impressionist movement, although he was an impressionist by instinct."3
Frank’s father, Parson William Boggs, served in the Civil War as chaplain and, later, became a principal shareholder in the New York Evening Sun. Shortly after Frank’s birth, a phrenologist pronounced that Frank would be a sickly person.4 As a result, William Boggs thought an art career for his son would be appropriate. After the family moved to New York, Frank found friends at Niblo’s Garden Theater and soon became interested in costume and set design. Apparently, his first formal art instruction came in the late 1860s from John Bernard Whittaker, an Irish portrait painter in Brooklyn from 1857 onward, who was instrumental in the organization of the *Brooklyn Academy of Design.5 It is believed that Boggs studied under Whittaker and others in the Halsey Building on Fulton Street. Frank also worked at Harper’s publishing facilities where he learned wood engraving.
Probably in 1872, Boggs went to Europe, where he remained for about six years. His first and longest sojourn was in Hamburg, where he also studied bookbinding. He arrived in Paris some time in 1875. Armed with an official letter of recommendation, Boggs passed the rigid entrance examination at the *Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1876 where he was soon promoted to life class. His principal instructor was *Jean-Léon Gérôme, who recommended that Boggs try "painting on the other side of the door."6 Gérôme meant that Boggs should try landscape painting because his figure painting was hopeless. Taking Gérôme’s advice, Boggs went to Dieppe and to London, where he sold a few canvases. Later, he returned to Paris and worked in its environs.
In 1878, an unidentified New York newspaper reported: "Mr. Frank Boggs has just returned from Paris. He has brought back with him much artistic enthusiasm and a great number of samples of his success. The treatment is rather broad, but full of force and color."7 In a studio at 125 Gates Street, Boggs began his career. The first exhibition of the *Society of American Artists, held in March 1878, included one of his French canvases, An Old Mill at Argenteuil. Later in the year, he painted for a few weeks on Shelter Island at the far end of Long Island. In reporting his activities, one newspaper writer stated: "His genre belongs to an advanced school and doubtless will attract attention and controversy."8
Later, Boggs exhibited a Parisian scene at the Gibbons Gallery. A writer for the Sunday Eagle noted: "If you drew back, instead of appearing coarse and formless, this painting, in the very latest French style, produces a very different effect. . . . This school still cannot be appreciated on this side of the ocean, and it will take time before it is."9 Listing his address in 1879 as 191 Montague Street in Brooklyn, Boggs exhibited one work, entitled Street Scene in Paris, which was offered at $500 in the annual spring show at the *National Academy of Design. Perhaps because of harsh criticism, Boggs was back in Paris by early 1880. Typical of the unfavorable comment he received was the following of an unknown critic in the Brooklyn Eagle: "Boggs, who has returned to Paris. . . had too much confidence in himself. . . . His work in many cases is full of flaws. The design is extremely poor in a number of his paintings, and the colors are not true."10
From his next address on the rue du Vieux-Colombier, Boggs submitted work to the Paris Salon, where it was well received. According to his biographer, while in Paris, Frank Boggs became "a totally different man, an American still, but one with a Parisian air about him." Alexandre continues: "His [Boggs’] expression was at the same time skeptical, but determined, and he wore a handsome beard, elegant, rather than in the fashion of the art student."11 Maintaining studios in Paris and Dieppe, Boggs showed his work at the Salon and elsewhere, while critics compared it favorably to that of Antoine Guillemet (1843-1918), who introduced *Manet to Zola, and other promising French contemporaries. The Retour de la pLche aux crabes was a painting probably seen at the Salon and then was sent with Bâteau de pLche B Dieppe to the annual exhibition of the *Boston Art Club, where the latter work received a bronze medal. Place de la Bastille was shown in the Salon of 1882 and was not only praised by critics, but purchased by the French government for the Luxembourg Museum. Before two years after Boggs’s return to Paris, his New York critics turned from harsh indignation to compliments, as in the New York Herald, for example, which stated that "America had been honored"12 by this acquisition.
Frank Boggs became a confirmed European expatriate.13 In 1882, he visited Grandchamps and Ysigny, and, later, at Dordrecht, Holland, he did some of his most charming paintings. These reflect the slower pace of life there, but, ironically, they are more charged with energy and color than his scenes of Paris. Alexandre points out that Boggs had a remarkable way of getting his canvases into a wide variety of national shows in both France and America. For example, in 1883, when the American Art Gallery in New York hung Boggs’s work, the Pennsylvania Academy’s Exhibition of Studies also presented three works, while others were displayed at the Paris Salon and in Nice. In London, the gallery of Goupil and Company prepared a small brochure for a one-man show including forty-six of Boggs’s sketches, in oil and watercolor, of "English, French and Dutch Scenery." Later that year, a few of his works were shown in Chicago at the Interstate Industrial Exposition, while a painting known as La Place Saint-Germain-des-Prés hung in the exhibition of the New England Manufacturers and Mechanics Institute in Boston.14 So it was that Boggs was becoming an internationally known artist.
Boggs’s exhibition schedule for 1884 began in January when Dieppe, owned by George I. Seney, was included in the Brooklyn Art Association Gallery’s *Bartholdi Pedestal Fund Exhibition, a widely publicized show that featured many fine examples of French impressionism.15 By this time, the famous Paris firm of Goupil was exhibiting his work regularly. In 1885, he visited Saint-Malo, Honfleur, and Dieppe. One of his proudest moments occurred in 1886, when the Nantes Museum purchased an oil known as Gros Temps B Honfleur, after its showing at the Paris Salon. The outspoken critic Clarence Cook included Boggs in his large volume, Art and Artists of Our Time in 1888, stating that he "must not be forgotten in calling the roll of our marine-painters, since he is one of the most individual of the younger men in this field, and the most varied in his subject."16 Because of his mother’s death, Boggs remained for several months in New York when, during the winter of 1888-89, his father also died.
Boggs returned to France in March 1889 in time for the great *Paris Universal Exposition. The American impressionists *Childe Hassam, *William Merritt Chase, *John Singer Sargent, and *J. Alden Weir received prestigious awards at this event, while Boggs won a silver medal. In 1890, Boggs was in New York again and two of his paintings were shown in the annual exhibition of the National Academy. Prophesying *Robert Henri’s ideas about American art, at least one of Boggs’ pictures, the Third Avenue Elevated Station, differed obviously from his usual work. He spent much of 1891 and 1892 traveling in England, Holland, France, Spain, and North Africa. Chicago’s 1893 *World’s Columbian Exposition included Boggs’s Brooklyn Bridge (unlocated), a powerful depiction of America’s then ten-year-old engineering masterwork. Not a great deal is known about him from 1894 through 1897 except that he sent pictures to the Paris Salon and a few others Salons.
Boggs made Paris his permanent base in 1898. Alexandre states that his views of Paris, like Le Pont Saint-Michel, emanate from his resumed activity there, "beginning a new cycle that was especially characteristic." Alexandre explained: "Some watercolors...reveal a more reflective, more serious note, although they are full of movement and rich, beautiful harmonies steadily sustained throughout the series."17 In 1900, Boggs’s wife bore him a son, named Frank Will, who would also become an artist. The Boggs family lived in Nanterre until 1903, when they moved to the environs of Vernon. The artist was given a solo show by the champion of the impressionists, *Paul Durand-Ruel. From this time on, Boggs had little trouble supporting his family. He was, however, occasionally criticized for overproduction and, indeed, for turning out potboilers at the demand of dealers. In 1905, the family moved to the rue de Birague, an address he maintained until 1910. His work now became relatively conservative and predictable; one French critic pointed out in 1907: "This Yankee from Ohio who became French of his own volition. . . is in love with whatever is different, rare, and he paints what he likes. . . . Frank Boggs is not interested in glitter nor vibrancy; he prefers nuance to color."18 Boggs finally settled in *Montmartre.
At the urging of George Cain, director of the Carnavalet Museum, Boggs’s paintings were again, in 1912, purchased by the French government. That winter, the Haussmann Gallery in Paris presented an impressive one-man show of watercolors, entitled Châteaux de la Loire. Local critics were complimentary: "Frank Boggs was the friend of Jongkind. . . there existed between them a certain similarity of inspiration. . . . His water-colours reveal an impeccable draughtsmanship while they remain very broad and free in style."19 During the years of World War I, little is known of Boggs. In 1920, his son Frank Will exhibited for the first time at the *Salon des Indépendants. Since Boggs had experimented with etching for several years, he had a one-man show of over thirty of his European prints in 1921. They were exceedingly well received and brought him welcome funds.
Boggs became a French citizen in 1923. His biographer, however, made a special point that "he had the air of a respectable, distinguished American."20 Boggs went South to Grasse (the home of Jean-Honoré Fragonard) to paint. Later, he spent some time in Holland. On his return to France, he fell ill and was able to work only on a limited basis in 1924. In the next year, he and his family moved to Bas-Meudon, where his top floor studio, filled to brimming with his paintings, overlooked the Seine and the surrounding countryside. Here, about five miles from Paris, Frank Boggs worked steadily until a peaceful death ended his career, in the summer of 1926, at the age of seventy. Unfortunately, his work is little known in his native land, although he was posthumously awarded France’s Legion of Honor.
REF.
Child, 1884; Sedeyn, 1913; Alexandre, 1929; Boyle, 1974, p. 139; Quick, 1976, p. 85; Burke, 1980, pp. 180-183; The Art Fund Gallery, 1981; A Century of American Impressionism, 1982; Sellin, 1982, p. 183; Weinberg, 1984, p. 103; Fink, 1990, pp. 221, 322; Weinberg, 1991, p. 74; Keny and Maciejunes, 1994, pp. 48, 98-99; Beacon Hill Fine Art, 1995, cat. no. 6. |
Paintings by Frank M. Boggs
| Paris Street Scene |
| watercolor on paper:10 x 15 1/2 inches |
| signed: lower left |
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Click Picture to Enlarge
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