Franklin C. Watkins

Born in New York City, Franklin Watkins, whose nickname was "Watty," was known for a painting style of "dramatic realism", which emerged in the mid 1920s and was "characterized by surging diagonals, expressionistic distortions and despite a brushy facture, insistent wiry outlines." (Baigell, 369)

He spent his boyhood in Philadelphia and took his art training at the Pennsylvania Academy from 1913 to 1918. However, his studies were interrupted due to financial difficulties and World War I in which he enlisted in the Navy with his life-long friend, Arthur B Carles. Watkins had "service as a civilian wartime ship camouflage* artist for the U.S. Shipping Board in Philadelphia." (Behrens)

He then spent five years as a commercial artist and in 1923, traveled to Europe on a Cresson Scholarship* and spent time in France, Spain, and Italy. His study of the Old Masters* much influenced his future career. After teaching at the Tyler School of Art* at Temple University and the Philadelphia College of Art*, he had a long career, from 1943 to his death in 1972, as a teacher at the Pennsylvania Academy of Art*.

He earned many awards including the Bronze Medal at the Paris International Exposition in 1937 and the Bronze Medal at the Musee Jeu de Paume in Paris in 1938. However, the turning point in his career was in 1931 when he won the Carnegie International* Exhibition First Award for Suicide in Costume, a dead clown with smoking pistol in hand. This work was the subject of much controversy as well as positive admiration.

Watkins' painting included symbolic still life, figure and occasional portraits focused on introspection. His portrait of Mayor Clark was criticized for being too brooding. New York critics disdained Watkins after a Museum of Modern Art retrospective in 1950, so he never again showed in that city.

Sources:

Matthew Baigell, Dictionary of American Art

Roy Behrens whose reference is William Bell Clark, "Camouflage Painting on the Delaware", Philadelphia in the World War 1914-1919