Franklin’s son Nate helped us hang his father’s art.
For 35 years Franklin Boggs was an art professor at Beloit College. His son, Nate Boggs, still lives in Beloit and installed the artwork for us. The sculpted piece represents Turtle Creek and it’s ever changing course and contours. Very appropriate to hang in our building as a reminded of the power of water, as Turtle Creeks banks continue to change and erode right here at the confluence.
“Franklin Boggs: The Art of Economies” will be an exhibit at Beloit College Wright Museum of Art, June 7 – September, 2019. This exhibit, and a corresponding exhibit at the Beloit Arts Center, will attempt to document the life long career of this artist.
Boggs also painted “Thibault’s Cabin: The Founding of Beloit”, that depicts the fur trader Joseph Thibault at his cabin that was located adjacent to our property in 1835. Read about it in this article: “It may be buried, but history still lives here at the confluence”
Boggs Biography from Museum of Wisconsin Art:
A painter, sculptor and muralist, Franklin Boggs graduated from the Fort Wayne Art School in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. After employment as a graphic artist with the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority), he served as a World War II correspondent artist, in 1944, with the US Army Medical Corps in New Guinea painting realistic images of soldiers in the aftermath of battle.
In 1945, Boggs came to Wisconsin to join the faculty of Beloit College. As professor, Chairman of the Art Department and also Artist in Residence, he established high standards of excellence for students. He was recognized as one of America’s outstanding young teachers and remained at the college for 35 years before retiring in 1979.
Versatile and productive, he was honored by Life Magazine in 1948 as one of the nineteen best young American painters and in 1963 by the American Institute of Architects for achievement in the design and execution of pre-cast concrete sculpture. His paintings have been exhibited in leading museums in the US and abroad. Using innovative techniques with mixed media, he created imaginative murals that are installed in civic buildings, businesses and educational institutions in eight states and Finland. His work can be found in many permanent collections including the Pentagon and the Museum of Wisconsin Art. After a long influential career, he continued to reside in Beloit, Wisconsin until his death in 2009.
From: http://www.wisconsinart.org/archives/artist/w-franklin-boggs/profile-570.aspx
