Franck Will (1900-1951) Place De La Grosse Horloge à La Rochelle Oil On Canvas Circa 1925-1930

Franck Will (1900-1951) Place de la Grosse Horloge à La Rochelle oil on canvas circa 1925-1930

An oil on canvas signed and located lower right by Frank Will French and American painter and watercolorist, depicting: A view of the Place de la Grosse Horloge in La Rochelle circa 1930.

Sizes unframed: H 23.62 In. - W 28.74 In.
Sizes with frame: H 29.92 In. - W 35.03 In.

In good condition on its original canvas.
It comes from a French private collection.

Frank Will or Frank William Boggs (1900 - 1951):

French and American painter and watercolorist: Nanterre (Haut de Seine) March 13, 1900, Clichy (Seine) December 29, 1950.

Son of American-born painter Frank Boggs, Frank Will signed his early works Franque, William Frank, or just Frank; he adopted his pseudonym definitively in 1919.
Between 1914 and 1918, he lived with his father on Boulevard de Clichy.
In 1916, he turned his attention to watercolors. The following year, he met Gen Paul, who was to influence his early work, and Leprin, who were to become his friends. Gen Paul dragged him into the famous "Chignolle", a brass band of local painters. It's impossible to list all the addresses he had on the Butte-Montmartre.
During the war, he lived at 37 rue Pigalle, before finally settling at 1 Boulevard de Clichy, above the Café des Artistes.

In his book on Leprin, Pierre Bureau recounts how Frank Will, who inherited the sum of 80,000 frs in cash in 1926, "placed" it with Manière on rue Caulincourt, from which he deducted the cost of his drinks and those of his friends. Needless to say, it took only a few months to exhaust the inheritance.

Denis Coisne, from Bourg en Bresse, has published the only known monograph on an artist who is often better than his reputation as a facile painter. It has to be said that his output was abundant for a relatively short career - he died at the age of 50. His watercolors could be seen at Georges Petit (1929), Terrisse, Keller, and Yvonel, as well as at Henri Bureau's gallery at 54 rue de Rochechouart.

Montmartre and Paris were his favorite subjects, but he also painted seascapes, ships and galleons, the Normandy coast (1922), orchestras (1927), the provinces, Moret sur Loing, the Paris region, Mantes (1928 and 1938), "bacchanals" (1941), and Morocco (1948).

He is buried in Père-Lachaise, near his parents.

Ref : Dictionnaire des peintres à Montmartre Éditions Roussard.