Frederick Judd Waugh

Here's a link to a great post on the painting notes of F. Judd Waugh, the great master of surf painting: art and influence blog.

His seascape palette included three blues: cobalt, ultramarine, and cerulean. Viridian green combined with cerulean blue produces the turquoises in his foreground waves. Cerulean and viridian are essential for capturing the hues of seawater. He added the cool red, Alizarin crimson, to his skies to suggest distant rosiness. He also included cadmium red and yellow in his palette, warm colors suitable for foreground rocks and sand; and burnt and raw sienna would have served for underpainting cliffs and rocks. Sea foam needs to be a bright and opaque white. He used "permalba" white and ivory black (a cool black tending towards blue, suitable for the sea).
I'm not sure what was in the permalba white manufactured in the early 20th century but on a painting forum I read that the permalba white in art shops today is not very opaque.

Some books on F. Judd Waugh:

Paintings of the sea.

Memorial Exhibition: Paintings of the Sea By Frederick Judd Waugh, N.a., 1861-1940

Frederick Judd Waugh - USA

Full of the Moon

"To paint the sea, you must love it,
and to love it, you must know the sea."

- Frederick Judd Waugh



The Roaring Forties, 1908

Wild Weather, ca 1930

Golden Dawn, 40 x 50

Light on the Sea, 30 x 40

At The Base Of The Cliff, 1908, 40 x 50

Evening Light, 30 x 40

Seascape, 30 x 40

The Polar Bear, 60 x 72

The Suns Rays, 25 x 30

Seascape

Surf

Silver Light

Seagulls, 16 x 36

At High Tide, 20 x 24

South?

The Channel

The Buccaneers

Unknown title

Tropic Seas

The Mystery of the Sea

29 x 36

15 x 27 inches, Gouache

Ebbing Waters

God, he was good!

Here's a link to a biographical post on Judd Waugh:
http://artandinfluence.blogspot.com/2008/12/frederick-judd-waugh-by-armand-cabrera.html

Frederick Judd Waugh - American

Pounding Surf ND, 11.5 x 15.75 inches

At his best, F Judd Waugh is one of my favourite seascape artists; for his sense of structure, and his fine observation of the forms of waves, foam and rocks. 

I realise that many would look on this type of painting as 'motel art'. This happens when a style of painting deservedly enjoys popularity, but then gets rehashed to death, and later haunts us as a kind of scary kitsch ghost. But if you see FJW's work in it's historical context, forgetting about subsequent imitation, you get a wonderfully clear evocation of the sea. He lived for almost 80 years - his first 40 in the 19th Century and the second half of his life in the 20th - so it's understandable that his work stands somewhat awkwardly between the Victorian and the Modern. Anyway, you'll find a lot of his work in this blog. FJW's reputation in the contemporary art market has not been helped by the sentimental figurative works he also did.

FJW was considered the successor to Winslow Homer as the greatest marine artist of his day in America, but is unlikely to have seen any of the elder artist's work.
He wrote, Painting by the Sea, and Seascape Painting, Step by Step with a Knife, instructional books on painting.

Frederick Judd Waugh

At the Base of the Cliff, 1908, 
40 x 50 inches

Before attempting a seascape, it's always a good idea to consider what the painting will be about. If it's about the sea, devoting a large proportion of the composition to the sky or land, may detract from the subject, and weaken what the painting has to say. Other elements can contribute to the overall mood, and to the evocation of a place in time, but often, just a strip of sky and a fragment of cliff are enough. In this work by the master seascape painter, Frederick Judd Waugh, 90% of the image is nothing but water and foam, but there is still the impression of a specific place and time  -  the base of a cliff, perhaps at evening.

Frederick Judd Waugh

Southwesterly Gale, St Ives 1907

Here's a link to an interesting post on Frederick Judd Waugh

Judd Waugh

Tropic Seas, 13.5 x 20 inches


The Caribbean, 30 x 39 cm


Deluge, 48 x 60 inches

Crashing Surf, 25 x 30 inches

Surf and Rocks, 32 x 49 inches

At High Tide, 20 x 24 inches

The Inlet, 18 x 24 inches

The Sea, oil on board, 36 x 49 inches

The Rocky Point, 25 x 30 inches

Crashing Surf, 16 x 20 inches

Breaking Waves, 36.2 x 50.8 cm

Golden Dawn, 40 x 50 inches

Judd Waugh was the most successful painter of seascapes, of his period, in America, and naturally has been much emulated by other artists. Such scenes in the hands of lesser artists have often degenerated into cliche or kitsch. His work needs to be seen in the context of his time.

Frederick Judd Waugh

One of my favourite seascape painters.

Marine Evenings

Albert Goodwin, Sunset.
Arthur B. Davis.
Olof Thunman
Frederick Judd Waugh, Moonlight, 1893.
Pelle Svedlund, Evening on the West Coast (Sweden, c.1891).  

Sunsets provide a way of introducing warm colours: golden yellows and reds, into a marine painting, to balance out the coolness of the sea.

Rocks

Some marines I found on the Bonhams auction house site. I neglected to post them when the auction was current, in September last year. But better late than never.

There's a lot of white paint, contrasted with near blacks, in these works, which are all (I think) of rocky parts of East Coast of the US.

The first one is by Abraham Bogdanove, an artist born in Minsk (now in Belarus) who found the Maine Coast (particularly the rugged rocks of Monhegan Island) an endless source of inspiration.

The second is by contemporary painter Michael B Karas.

Two works by Frederick Judd Waugh follow.


Here are some beautiful nautical works from an upcoming Bonhams marine auction
http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/20482/

Montague Dawson, Eventide.
Antonio Jacobsen, the ship County of Ediburgh stranded on a beach.
Antonio Jacobsen, The ship El Rio at sea.