Hermann Dudley Murphy (American, 1867 to 1945)
Boston School artist, Hermann Dudley Murphy began his studies at the Museum School in Boston with Edmund Tarbell and Frank Benson. In 1891 he went to Paris where he attended the Academie Julian and studied with Jean-Paul Laurens. While in Paris, Murphy met James Abbott McNeil Whistler and was inspired by the palette, tonality, and compositions of the artist. Murphy, like Whistler, began to create his own frames that complemented his paintings. Upon his return to the US, Murphy opened a frame-making studio, Carrig-Rohane, with Charles Prendergast (and later with W. Alfred Thulin).
Murphy first traveled to Nicaragua in 1887 for his work as an illustrator for the Nicaraguan Canal Expedition. He continued to travel to the tropics throughout the late 1800s and early 1900s. These travels certainly influenced his art; by the 1910s Murphy departed from the soft colors and refined compositions that marked his early work and began to use a vibrant palette and energetic brushwork.
Information courtesy of Skinner Inc., May 2009.
Hermann Dudley Murphy was a painter, art teacher, frame designer and illustrator. His studies began in the 1880′s at the Boston Museum School and he continued on at Academie Julien in Paris from 1891 to 1896. For one year (1887-1888) Murphy was an illustrator for the Nicaraguan Canal expedition. On his return from Paris he concentrated on portraiture and figural studies. In the early 20th century he traveled to the tropics, particularly Puerto Rico and from 1910-1920 his work was more colorful with looser brushwork. In the 1920s and 1930s, he concentrated on producing still life’s, working in a vibrant Impressionist style.
He is best known today for his floral still life paintings. Following in Whistler’s footsteps Hermann Murphy designed frames for his paintings. He was so good a frame designer he opened his own shop “Carrig Rohane” in Winchester, MA. He moved it to Boston in 1905, and subsequently sold the shop in 1917 to Vose Gallery. From 1931-1937 he taught in the Art Department at Harvard University. He died eight years later in 1945. Murphy was a member of the Boston Art Club, the Guild of Boston Artists, the National Arts Club, and Boston Society of Watercolor Painters, the Copley Society, the Massachusetts State Art Commission, Painters & Sculptors Gallery Association, Woodstock Art Association and more. He received medals at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo in 1901 and from the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in Saint Louis in 1904.