Frank-will (1900–1950) Market In Paris

As is often the case, the artist depicts a Parisian street scene.
The work is presented under museum-quality glass in a gilded carved wooden frame measuring 53 cm by 61.5 cm and 45.5 cm by 53.5 cm (visible area).
It depicts a bustling market, likely in the Butte district or another working-class neighborhood in Paris that the artist frequented
A receding perspective, with a street stretching off to the left and buildings rising diagonally—a typical composition for this artist, who favored slightly elevated viewpoints, and a bustling street teeming with figures, carts, and occasionally cars…
A dynamic brushstroke, broad, wet washes for the sky and facades, and highlights in pen or black pencil to outline the architecture and lend vigor to the drawing.
The crowd in the foreground conveys a real sense of bustle and life; it is rendered with a multitude of small, arranged sparingly in a single, spontaneous stroke, and a few splashes of red, yellow, and blue are enough to suggest the figures and movement without going into detail—which is Frank-Will’s true strength: capturing the atmosphere rather than exact description.
A vibrant work that evokes the slightly misty atmosphere of early 20th-century Parisian streets.

The son of American painter Frank Myers Boggs, born in Springfield, Ohio, in 1855, who, upon returning from a trip to North Africa, committed the romantic abduction of Josephine (born in Urrugne in 1871), daughter of farmer Isidore and Felipa Gaintza, in Urrugne (Pyrénées-Atlantiques). The couple—who would not marry until 1917—had four children: Jane, in 1895, then a boy who lived only a few months, Mary, in 1898. The birth of Frank William in 1900 made the apartment at 2 rue Gambetta in Nanterre too small and led to the family moving to "a pretty house in Autouillet, a charming little village in Seine-et-Oise." From the age of 10, Frank showed himself to be a painter at heart. Although he was in constant visual contact with his father's works, in the studio on rue de Clignancourt which Frank Boggs occupied from 1910 to 1913 and then at 1, boulevard de Clichy where the family resided during the First World War, the didactic master-student relationship between father and son, as stated by Édouard-Joseph, is contested by Éric Mercier for whom "Frank learns alone, most often left to his own devices, the father refusing to give him the slightest advice during his furtive appearances". The earliest recorded paintings by the teenager, landscapes of the area around Autouillet, date from 1916. He began studying architecture, which he abandoned to devote himself entirely to painting. Already searching for an artist's name to avoid any confusion with his father, he initially signed his work "Franque," then "Frank" in 1917, "William Frank" in 1918, "Franck-Will" in 1919, and finally "Frank-Will" in 1921. Young Frank's passion at the time was the hunting horn, which he played. He was the oldest known friend of the painter Gen Paul, whom he met in 1917 and introduced to music. Together, they busked, playing in the courtyards of Belleville and Ménilmontant, and together they also painted views of Paris. We even know of a painting by them, "Figure in the Street in the Snow," playfully painted collaboratively in 1926 and signed Gen-Will and Frank Paul. Views of Paris naturally constituted Frank-Will's first favorite subject. After 1925, the Barré and Dayez publishing houses popularized his Sacré-Cœur, Opéra Garnier, Gare du Nord, and Colonne Vendôme on postcards. His holidays in the 1920s and 1930s are documented and allow us to date certain works: Normandy (including Rouen and Honfleur) in 1922, La Rochelle in 1926, Amiens in 1929, and Barfleur in 1930. It was there that he became attached to the theme of tall ships, those galleons he adored and which would remain one of his recurring themes, sometimes even appearing in compositions of imaginary naval battles. It was later, with a friend he met at the Henri Bureau gallery, Marcel Leprin (1891-1932), that he visited Moret-sur-Loing, Auxerre, and Avallon. On August 13, 1936, Frank-Will married Victoire Royer (born in 1884) at the town hall of the 7th arrondissement of Paris, and they settled at 31 rue Rousselet, then at 44 rue Castor in Mantes-la-Jolie. In the summer, the couple went to Le Tréport, where they ran a tiny gallery on the Quai François-Ier and sold watercolors. But, unable to give up Montmartre and his bohemian lifestyle, Frank-Will separated (without divorcing) from Victoire, who remained in Mantes, while he moved back to Paris, first to 37 rue Pigalle, then, reinvesting in his father's old studio, once again to 1 boulevard de Clichy, where another woman—Yvonne David, known as "Mimiche"—entered his life, while he spent lavishly, squandering his inheritance and resources on rounds of drinks in cafés and cabarets. Still a musician, he played in jazz orchestras, then in the brass band La Chignole with Gen Paul, Jean d'Esparbès, Pere Créixams, Charles Bégo, Tony Agostini, and Marcel Aymé, becoming one of the prominent Montmartre figures evoked by Francis Carco, all the while accumulating debt and ruining his health with drunken revelry. In 1948, Frank-Will took a brief trip to Morocco. There he contracted amoebae, and in 1950 in Paris, he was hit by a bus in the Place de l'Opéra. Weakened by alcohol and neglecting medical care, he underwent surgery on December 29, 1950, for a partial removal of his right lung; the operation went badly, and he died the same day. He rests beside Frank and Josephine Boggs in the family vault in Paris's Père-Lachaise Cemetery (44th division), where he was buried on January 4, 1951. His name was never engraved there.

Solo Exhibitions:
Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 1920, 1929.
Galerie Hector Brame, Paris, 1930s.
Galerie Henri Bureau, 54 rue de Rochechouart, Paris, 1930s to 1950s.
Terrisse, Keller and Yvonel Galleries, Paris, undated exhibitions.
Frank-Will and Louis Régent, Hôtel Claridge, Paris, 1945.
Casablanca, Oran, 1948.

Group Exhibitions:
Salon d'Hiver, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, 1945.
Montmartre from Yesterday to Today, Madeleine Horst Gallery, 102 rue Lepic,
Paris, February 1951, extended as a traveling exhibition in Dakar, Douala, Abidjan, Brazzaville, 1951.
Landscape in Art: Henri Marret, Frank Boggs, Frank-Will, André Dunoyer de Segonzac, Meudon Museum of Art and History, 1961.
Montmartre and the Painters, Japan, 1994.
Montmartre, the Beginnings of Modern Art,
Regional Archaeological Museum of the Aosta Valley, Aosta, July-October 1998.
Markets of Dreux, Dreux Museum of Art and History, October 2009.
Arts et Autographes Gallery, 9 rue de l'Odéon, Paris, March-April 2014.
The Landscapes of Mantes Inspire Artists, Hôtel-Dieu Museum, Mantes-la-Jolie, March 2015 - January 2016.
La Belle Boucle, French Playing Card Museum, Issy-les-Moulineaux, January-March 2016.
Critical reception: "Some are no longer visible on the Butte Montmartre.
But their presence is there. And I rediscover Degas, Cézanne, Renoir, Derain, Van Dongen, Rouault, Utrillo, Marie Laurencin and Vlaminck. What a great team! And how alive they feel, with that truly Parisian Montmartre spirit, that charming Paris, as Frank-Will knew how to paint it with that mixture of finesse and hidden depth."
— François Mitterrand, Minister for Overseas Territories. "The painter is worth more than his legend as a bon vivant, a Montmartre reveler; An undeniable originality emerges from his naturalism, even if his very abundant works (he produced numerous views of Paris and Norman ports) contain weaknesses and uncertainties.
— Gérald Schurr “He oscillates between a populist post-impressionism, quite typically Montmartre, and flashes of a violent expressionism, which could have tended toward the tragic.”
— Jacques Busse

Public Collections
United States Orlando (Florida), Mennello Museum of American Art.
France Limay, Town Hall: Limay.
Menton, Museum of Fine Arts: Village Scene at Groslou; View of Paris, Saint-Gervais and Saint-Protais from the Seine. Meudon, Museum of Art and History: The Moulineaux Factories at Issy; as well as other works.
Saint-Malo, Museum of the History of the City and the Malouin Region.
Usclas-d'Hérault, town hall: Landscape at Avallon, on loan from the National Center for Visual Arts.
Versailles, Lambinet Museum: Place Jean-Baptiste-Clément in Montmartre.
Switzerland, Geneva, Petit Palais.