Waugh’s dynamic seascapes were often singled out in exhibition reviews and his manner of translating the unpredictable character of the ocean earned him a spot amongst the top-tier marine painters of his day. In a 1910 article for Art and Progress, writer Anna Seaton-Smith spoke highly of his work: “[Frederick Waugh’s] sensitive, refined nature is peculiarly adapted to the comprehension of the sea’s complexity, swiftly changing moods, myriad colors. He has studied it so long and so sympathetically that the sound of its singing is ever in his ears, the forms of its curling waves and rising billows ever before his eyes. With bold, sure strokes he gives us the dashing spray, the foaming, seething, tumbling water as it knocks and pounds against the wet, black rocks to which clings the slimy, dripping seaweed.” Waugh’s talents are certainly on display in the powerful seascape Maine Coast, Evening, the tumultuous surf and rocky coast illuminated by the last golden rays of the setting sun.

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Waugh exhibited regularly with the National Academy of Design, was elected a full member of 1911, and earned several of their top awards, including the Thomas B. Clarke prize in 1910 and the Palmer Memorial Prize for marine painting in 1929. He also showed with the Pennsylvania Academy, the Corcoran Gallery, the Boston Art Club, and in Pittsburgh at the Carnegie International Exhibition, where he won the popular prize voted upon by the public for five consecutive years from 1934 to 1938. Today, Waugh’s works are in numerous public collections across the country, including at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Reading Public Museum in Reading, Pennsylvania.

Provenance:

Grand Central Art Galleries, New York

To private collection, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, circa 1977

With Freeman’s Auction, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

To collection of Abbot W. and Marcia L. Vose, Duxbury, Massachusetts, December 2020 until present

Inscription:

(upper left verso) MAINE COAST, EVENING

Labels:

1. GRAND CENTRAL ART GALLERIES, INC. / 15 VANDERBILT AVENUE / NEW YORK, N. Y. A 212 / Artist Fred. J. Waugh. / Title Maine Coast, Evening / Price $1000\⁰⁰ Size 30/40 / Bin No. ---- ESSX
2. JOSEPH SARTOR GALLERIES / Dallas, Texas / NO. 1627 Size 30x40 / Title “Maine Coast – Evening” / Artist Frederick J. Waugh