1867 - 1945
Murphy, son of a shoe manufacturer, was educated at Chauncey Hall School and at the School of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts under Joseph DeCamp.
Murphy worked as artist and surveyor for the Nicaragua Canal Survey Expedition (1887-88) and did newspaper and magazine illustration (1886-1891). He went to Paris in 1891 and studied at the Academie Julian where he served as massier in Laurens' atelier. In 1895 he married Caroline Bowles, a student in the Laurens class. Upon the couple's return to the United States, they settled in Winchester, MA. where they built a house and studio in 1903. Murphy and Charles Prendergast set up a frame business, Carrigrohane Shop, in the basement of the house. In 1905 the business was moved to Boston and later joined into partnership with Vose Galleries. The frames designed by the artists were hand carved and influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement and Whistler. Murphy divorced Caroline in 1915 and the following year married Nellie Littehale Umbetaetter whom he had known in Paris.
Murphy taught life drawing at the Harvard School of Architecture (1901-1937). During World War I he worked as inspector of camouflage for the U.S. Shipping Board.
His work is heavily influenced by Whistler and exhibits his qualities of aestheticism, delicacy and poetic feeling. Murphy was interested in portraiture early, but soon turned his focus to landscape painting and in the 1920s to flower painting.
Murphy painted on Cape Cod, Marblehead, Woodstock, New York City, Ogunquit, Mt. Monadnock (with Charles Woodbury in the winter of 1907), the Mediterranean (1908), the Azores (also with Woodbury), Puerto Rico (with Henry Ward Ranger), California and Mexico (1930s).
A memorial exhibition of his work was held at the Grand Central Art Galleries in 1946.
Murphy worked as artist and surveyor for the Nicaragua Canal Survey Expedition (1887-88) and did newspaper and magazine illustration (1886-1891). He went to Paris in 1891 and studied at the Academie Julian where he served as massier in Laurens' atelier. In 1895 he married Caroline Bowles, a student in the Laurens class. Upon the couple's return to the United States, they settled in Winchester, MA. where they built a house and studio in 1903. Murphy and Charles Prendergast set up a frame business, Carrigrohane Shop, in the basement of the house. In 1905 the business was moved to Boston and later joined into partnership with Vose Galleries. The frames designed by the artists were hand carved and influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement and Whistler. Murphy divorced Caroline in 1915 and the following year married Nellie Littehale Umbetaetter whom he had known in Paris.
Murphy taught life drawing at the Harvard School of Architecture (1901-1937). During World War I he worked as inspector of camouflage for the U.S. Shipping Board.
His work is heavily influenced by Whistler and exhibits his qualities of aestheticism, delicacy and poetic feeling. Murphy was interested in portraiture early, but soon turned his focus to landscape painting and in the 1920s to flower painting.
Murphy painted on Cape Cod, Marblehead, Woodstock, New York City, Ogunquit, Mt. Monadnock (with Charles Woodbury in the winter of 1907), the Mediterranean (1908), the Azores (also with Woodbury), Puerto Rico (with Henry Ward Ranger), California and Mexico (1930s).
A memorial exhibition of his work was held at the Grand Central Art Galleries in 1946.
