Artist Profile

  • frederick r wagner
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  • frederick r. wagner

Frederick R. Wagner

  • Lived:
  • 1864-1940
  • Worked:
  • Pennsylvania
  • Style:
  • Landscape, Urban

  • Frederick Wagner, a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania painter and teacher, was born in Port Kennedy, Pennsylvania in 1864.  Wagner enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1878-1884) and was made chief demonstrator of anatomy to the life classes by the Academy.  After completing his studies at the Academy where he studied under Thomas Eakins, he traveled west and began painting in California.

    Upon returning to Philadelphia, he took a job as an illustrator for the Philadelphia Press and was heavily influenced by the Urban Realism propagated by Robert Henri, William Glackens and John Sloan.  Wagner often painted impressionist urban scenes of Philadelphia, and like many of his contemporaries, he did work that often portrayed the overwhelming city diminishing the importance and frailty of humanity.

    He was asked to teach at the Pennsylvania Academy’s Chester Springs School and did so for seven years.  Around 1912, Wagner opened his studio in Philadelphia and founded the Addingham School of Painting in an old farmhouse, in a colony similar to the one in the New Hope area.  His modernist work is also highly sought after by collectors whose interest’s center around the artworks created by America’s “Avant-Garde” during the late 19th century and first four decades of the 20th century.

    Studied:
    Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts with Thomas Eakins, 1878-1884

    Member:
    Philadelphia Sketch Club
    Philadelphia Watercolor Club
    Philadelphia Art Alliance

    Exhibited:
    Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 1882, 1883, 1885, 1887, 1888, 1890,
    1891, 1894, 1898-1902, 1906-1940 (Fellowship Prize, 1914)
    National Academy of Design, 1884, 1907, 1925, 1928
    Corcoran Gallery of Art Biennials, 1907-1935
    Art Institute of Chicago, 1906-1912, 1914, 1917, 1922, 1925, 1926
    Carnegie Institute, 1922 (honorable mention)
    Armory Show, New York City, 1913
    Philadelphia Art Club, 1922
    Philadelphia Sketch Club
    Panama-Pacific Expo, 1915
    Zabriskie Gallery, New York City, 1959 (solo)

    Work:
    Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
    Philadelphia Art Club
    Reading Art Museum, Pennsylvania
    Cleveland Museum of Art
    Parrish Art Museum
    Philadelphia Museum of Art
    American College of Surgeons
    Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine
    Sewell C. Biggs Museum of American Art, Dover, Delaware
    Philadelphia Sketch Club
    Delval Fine Art Consortium, Lansdale, Pennsylvania
    St. Louis Museum of Art
    Fort Wayne Museum, Fort Wayne, Indiana
    Kalamazoo Museum, Michigan
    Rochester Museum of Art, New York
    Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts
    James A. Michener Art Museum

    Taught:
    Pennsylvania Academy’s Chester Springs School

    References:
    Alterman, “Pennsylvania Impressionists & Modernists,”
    American Art Review, Oct. 2001
    Falk (ed.), Who Was Who in American Art 1564-1975
    Falk (ed.), The Annual Exhibition Record, 1876-1913, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts
    Gerdts, Peterson and Yount, Pennsylvania Impressionism
    Mallett, Mallett’s Index of Artists: International - Biographical
    Naeve, Selections from 150 Years of Philadelphia Painters and Paintings
    Opitz (ed.), Mantle Fielding’s Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors & Engravers
    Preato & Langer, Impressionism and Post-Impressionism Transformations 1885-1945
    Schwarz & Son (pub.), One Hundred Paintings by American and European Artists
    Schwarz & Son (pub.), American Impressionism and Other Movements
    Alterman, New Hope for American Art: A Comprehensive Showing of Important
    20th Century Paintings from and Surrounding the New Hope Art Colony
    Falk (ed.), The Annual Exhibition Record of the Art Institute of Chicago
    Falk (ed.), Annual Exhibition Record, National Academy of Design 1901-1950
    Falk (ed.) Annual Exhibition Record, 1914-68, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
    Fresella-Lee, The American Paintings in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
    Marling, Looking Back, A Perspective on the 1913 Inaugural Exhibition
    Walter and Lemos, Panama-Pacific Exposition: Catalogue of the Post-Exposition Exhibit
    Dunbier (ed.), The Artists Bluebook: 34,000 North American Artists to March 2005
    Alterman, Blue Chips
    Sellin and Sullivan, Thomas Eakins and His Fellow Artists at the Philadelphia Sketch Club
    Falk (ed.), Who Was Who in American Art 1898-1947
    Lowe Art Museum, Panama-Pacific Exposition: Catalogue of the Post-Exposition Exhibit
    Peterson (ed.), Pennsylvania Impressionism

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