Selected from the Ulrich’s extensive holdings of works by the artist, Frederick Judd Waugh, Waterscapes illustrated the breadth of approaches that he took in his studies of the major focus of his art. As a developing artist, Waugh explored a range of compositions from pastoral scenes to cityscapes, but his primary subject remained the sea. Waugh is generally considered one of America’s great marine painters. The works in this exhibition demonstrated his deft handling of light, tone and texture, and his ability to convey the sublime force of nature at moments of turbulence and repose.
Frederick Judd Waugh was born in 1861 in Bordentown, New Jersey. His father was Samuel Bell Waugh, an accomplished, recognized portrait painter. He studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts with Thomas Eakins and at the Académie Julian in Paris with Adolphe-William Bouguereau. After his studies he moved to England, residing on the island of Sark in the English Channel where he made his living as a seascape painter. He returned to the U.S. in 1908, settling in Montclair Heights, New Jersey, later living on Bailey Island, Maine and in Provincetown, Massachusetts. In 1910, Waugh won the Thomas B. Clark Prize at the National Academy of Design show. During WWI he served in the Navy as a camouflage painter of ships. During his career he established himself as the most popular marine painter in the country and was elected a full member of the National Academy of Design. Frederick Waugh died in Provincetown, Massachusetts on Sept 10, 1940, at age seventy-nine.
Banner: Frederick Judd Waugh, Rocks and Sea, 1930. Oil on canvas. Gift of Edwin A. Ulrich, Collection of the Ulrich Museum of Art.
