![The Azalea by Hermann Dudley Murphy](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/The_Azalea_by_Hermann_Dudley_Murphy.jpg)
Hermann Dudley Murphy (25 August 1867,
Marlborough, Massachusetts
Marlborough is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 41,793 at the 2020 census. Marlborough became a prosperous industrial town in the 19th century and made the transition to high technology industry in the ...
- 1945,
Lexington, Massachusetts
Lexington is a suburban town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is 10 miles (16 km) from Downtown Boston. The population was 34,454 as of the 2020 census. The area was originally inhabited by Native Americans, and was firs ...
) was an American painter, known mostly for
still-life
A still life (plural: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or man-made (drinking glasses, boo ...
s and landscapes. He also worked as an illustrator, art teacher and frame designer.
Biography
His father was an Irish-born shoe manufacturer and his mother was from an old New Hampshire family. He had his primary education at the
Chauncy Hall school in Boston then, in 1886, enrolled at the
Boston Museum School
The School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University (Museum School, SMFA at Tufts, or SMFA; formerly the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) is the art school of Tufts University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusett ...
, where he studied with
Emil Otto Grundmann
Professor Emil Otto Grundmann (1844 in Meissen – 27 August 1890 in Dresden), was a German painter who studied in Antwerp under Baron Hendrik Leys, and in Düsseldorf before moving to America where he became a noted painter. He was the fir ...
,
Joseph DeCamp
Joseph Rodefer DeCamp (November 5, 1858February 11, 1923) was an American painter and educator.
Biography
Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he studied with Frank Duveneck. In the second half of the 1870s he went with Duveneck and fellow students ...
and
Edmund C. Tarbell
Edmund Charles Tarbell (April 26, 1862August 1, 1938) was an American Impressionist painter. A member of the Ten American Painters, his work hangs in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art, Smithson ...
, who had the most influence on his style. In the following years he would, in fact, be counted among the "Tarbellites".
[Biography](_blank)
@ the Pierce galleries,
For a time, he worked as an illustrator. This included a commission to accompany the
Nicaraguan Canal Expedition from 1887 to 1888.
He moved to Paris in 1891, where he studied at the
Académie Julian
The Académie Julian () was a private art school for painting and sculpture founded in Paris, France, in 1867 by French painter and teacher Rodolphe Julian (1839–1907) that was active from 1868 through 1968. It remained famous for the number a ...
with
Benjamin-Constant
Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant (also known as Benjamin-Constant), born Jean-Joseph Constant (10 June 1845 – 26 May 1902), was a French painter and etcher best known for his Oriental subjects and portraits.
Biography
Benjamin-Constant was bo ...
and
Jean-Paul Laurens
Jean-Paul Laurens (; 28 March 1838 – 23 March 1921) was a French painter and sculptor, and one of the last major exponents of the French Academic style.
Biography
Laurens was born in Fourquevaux and was a pupil of Léon Cogniet and Alexand ...
. He would live there for five years. During his stay he was introduced to the work of
James McNeill Whistler
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (; July 10, 1834July 17, 1903) was an American painter active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral allusion in painting and was a leading pr ...
and absorbed elements of the
Aesthetic
Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed th ...
style. He exhibited some portraits at the
Salon
Salon may refer to:
Common meanings
* Beauty salon, a venue for cosmetic treatments
* French term for a drawing room, an architectural space in a home
* Salon (gathering), a meeting for learning or enjoyment
Arts and entertainment
* Salon (P ...
in 1895. Two years later, he and his wife Caroline Bowles, returned to the United States and settled in
Winchester, Massachusetts
Winchester is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, located 8.2 miles (13.2 km) north of downtown Boston as part of the Greater Boston metropolitan area. It is also one of the List of Massachusetts locations by per capita income, wealt ...
.
In 1903, he and
Charles Prendergast opened the "Carrig-Rohane" (Red Cliff) frame shop in Winchester. It was named after the Irish town where Murphy's father was born. In 1903 he taught frame-making at the
Arts and Crafts
A handicraft, sometimes more precisely expressed as artisanal handicraft or handmade, is any of a wide variety of types of work where useful and decorative objects are made completely by one’s hand or by using only simple, non-automated re ...
-oriented
Byrdcliffe Colony
The Byrdcliffe Colony, also called the Byrdcliffe Arts Colony or Byrdcliffe Historic District, was founded in 1902 near Woodstock, New York by Jane Byrd McCall and Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead and colleagues, Bolton Brown (artist) and Hervey White ...
in
Woodstock, NY
Woodstock is a town in Ulster County, New York, United States, in the northern part of the county, northwest of Kingston, NY. It lies within the borders of the Catskill Park. The population was 5,884 at the 2010 census, down from 6,241 in 2000. ...
, where he also created a set of doors painted with landscape for a Byrdcliffe chest. By 1905, Murphy and Prendergast's enterprise was successful enough that it relocated to Boston. In 1912 the Swedish woodcarver, Walfred Thulin (1878–1949) became a member of the company.
By 1915, the level of business had grown to the point where he asked his friend, the art dealer Robert Vose (1873–1964), to take over its day-to-day management. It remained in operation until 1939.
Murphy exhibited at the
Armory Show
The 1913 Armory Show, also known as the International Exhibition of Modern Art, was a show organized by the Association of American Painters and Sculptors in 1913. It was the first large exhibition of modern art in America, as well as one of ...
but, by 1928, had given up
modernism
Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...
. The ''
Boston Sunday Post
''The Boston Post'' was a daily newspaper in New England for over a hundred years before it folded in 1956. The ''Post'' was founded in November 1831 by two prominent Boston businessmen, Charles G. Greene and William Beals.
Edwin Grozier bough ...
'' quotes him as saying; "These Modernist painters say that they paint not what they see, but what they feel--well, Heaven help them if they feel like what they paint!"
Biography
@ AskArt.
In 1930, he became an Associate of the National Academy of Design
The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the fin ...
and was named an Academician in 1934. He was also a member of the Boston Art Club
The Boston Art Club, Boston, Massachusetts, serves to help its members, as well as non-members, to access the world of fine art. It currently has more than 250 members.
History
The Boston Art Club was first conceived in Boston in 1854 with the co ...
and the Copley Society, among several others. From 1931 to 1937, he taught in the Art Department at Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
. In his later years, he concentrated on floral still lifes. He and his wife were also avid canoeists and travelled extensively in Central America and the Caribbean. His works are displayed at museums throughout the United States.
References
Further reading
* Elizabeth Dailey and Sandra Leff Kvam, '' Hermann Dudley Murphy: Boston Painter at Home and Abroad'' (exhibition catalog, 1985), Graham Gallery
External links
More works by Murphy
@ ArtNet
The Carrig-Rohane Frame Shop
@ Vose Galleries
{{DEFAULTSORT:Murphy, Hermann
1867 births
1945 deaths
19th-century American painters
American still life painters
American landscape painters
Artists from Massachusetts
20th-century American painters