Franklin BOGGS
1914–2009, USA

Educated at the Fort Wayne Art School and Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Franklin Boggs traveled in Europe on two Fellowships, and was there at the beginning of World War II in 1939 and barely escaped from the Nazis in Paris. In Europe, he became fascinated by mural painting, and later as a teacher in Wisconsin, had a chance to study mural painting in Uruguay and Argentina. His art career began as an artist of the TVA, Tennessee Valley Authority and as a painter of murals for the U.S. Post Office. In 1944, he became a war artist- correspondent for Abbott Laboratories and documented the work of the Army Medical Department in the South Pacific. In this capacity, he did many dramatic, highly realistic paintings of the ravages of battle. Among his titles are Race Against Death, South Sea Island Paradise, Battalion Aid Station and Shock Tent. The paintings, done in his studio after the war, resulted from the many photographs and sketches he obtained on site. His career was documented in the PBS documentary They Drew Fire. After the war, Boggs painted on commission in South America and then became a full professor and artist-in-residence at Beloit College in Wisconsin. He was associated with that art department from 1945 to 1977. There he continued to paint as a muralist, and his murals are in eight states and in Finland. His largest mural, History of Medicine in Louisiana, is 112 feet long and five-feet high, and is installed at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in the Edith Garland Dupré Library.

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