This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  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 mlurals 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.
Following is the description from the Beloit Magazine, Fall 2002:
The Louisiana mural was the result of a post-war commission from the
Aloe Company of New Orleans, a subsidiary of Sherwood Medical
Industries. Prof. Boggs made numerous trips to New Orleans in the
process of his research. “Frank was extremely careful in his research,
and when he started this work, the history of Louisiana medicine had
not yet been written,” says Vern Shaffer’50, his former student and
later an art department colleague.
Prof. Boggs was fortunate to have had the assistance of Dr. Matas,
whose career included the development of many groundbreaking procedures
and associations with Dr. Carlos Finley and Walter Reed, both of whom
contributed to an understanding of the role of mosquitos in the spread
of disease.
In a turn that could have come directly out of a Twilight Zone episode,
Prof. Boggs acquired first-hand details of the first nuclear tests in
the Pacific by complete chance as he was returning from New Orleans.
One rainy night while driving through Illinois, he picked up a
hitchhiker who revealed he was a sailor on leave from duty in the
Pacific. The rider had no problem telling this friendly stranger that
he had been at Bikini for the atomic tests. When Boggs expressed
interest, the sailor talked on and eventually left Prof. Boggs with a
report on the Bikini tests, prepared on-board a ship on its way back to
the States. It noted animals and structures that had been exposed to
the explosion and became the source for the content of the mural’s
dramatic final panel.
The mural was painted in 1946 and 1947 on the first floor of Memorial
Hall, in Beloit’s Logan Museum of Anthropology. Railway Express backed
up a truck to the east door of Memorial Hall so that the artist could
load the panels himself. Then they were shipped on stretchers via
boxcar to New Orleans.
The mural was designed for the lobby of Aloe Company headquarters,
whose doors faced Tulane Medical Center across the street. The panels
were installed to accommodate stainless steel pillars that surrounded
the lobby. Prof. Boggs supervised the 1948 installation, which made use
of a special adhesive he developed of white lead and varnish that would
hold the weight of the large canvas at ceiling level in the legendary
humidity of the Delta.
For 25 years, it hung as a focal point for visitors and the medical
community. Many doctors who attended the recent dedication spoke of
developing an attachment to the mural as students, when they came to
the Aloe lobby to purchase medical instruments.
In 1972, when Tulane purchased the building and prepared to demolish it
to accommodate a new hospital and clinic, Prof. Boggs traveled to New
Orleans to oversee the removal of the mural. His adhesive formula had
done a formidable job, and he notes that people were paid more to
remove the mural than he had been paid to paint it. It was removed
without damage.
Affection for the mural prompted its installation in the main dining
room of the medical school, this time on plywood. While enjoyed by
students, physicians, and visitors to the cafeteria, it was hardly in
the best setting. Several years later, during a renovation, it was
removed."
For a period of time it disappeared, and in the 1990s was found in
storage. In 2002, it was re-installed, the money having been
raised by persons committed to its preservation.
Sources:
http://www.pbs.org/theydrewfire/artists/boggs.html
www.beloit.edu/~belmag/fall02/features/02fa_celebrated_mural.htm
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