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for Franklin Chenault Watkins
1894 - 1972
Although born in New York, Watkins's home from boyhood was Philadelphia. He attended the Groton (Connecticut) School, the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, and the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, before entering the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts for formal artistic training. He achieved instant fame--or notoriety, as some would have described it--when his painting Suicide in Costume received both the First Prize and the Lehman Prize at the 1931 Carnegie International exhibition in Pittsburgh. Watkins won many further awards and honors in his long career as a painter and teacher. He was a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters and an honorary life fellow of the American Academy in Rome. A major retrospective exhibition of his work was held at the Philadelphia Museum in 1964.
A frequent traveler, Watkins happened to be abroad at the time of his death.
A frequent traveler, Watkins happened to be abroad at the time of his death.
