Sears Gallagher, Boston watercolorist, 1865-1955.(Biography)

During a career that spanned from the late 1880s until World War II, Sears Gallagher (see Fig. 1) was one of Boston's most respected artists and a key figure in the development of watercolor painting in the United States. (1) At the height of his career, Gallagher's watercolors were favorably compared to those by Winslow Homer (1836-1910) and Frank Weston Benson (1862-1951). Although his work encompassed a wide range of subjects, he was best known for his New England scenes, which are once again gaining in reputation and popularity for their impeccable craftsmanship and pictorial sensitivity.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

Born in South Boston, Gallagher was the son of William Gallagher (1818-1884) an Irish immigrant cabinetmaker and stove merchant, and his wife, Mary Mercy Sears (1831-1905), a descendant of Pilgrims, including William Bradford (1589/90-1657), one of the first governors of Plymouth Colony. From early childhood, Gallagher loved to draw and was often discovered filling schoolbooks and hymnals with humorous sketches instead of following the lessons or the Sunday sermon. He began his formal training with George H. Bartlett (1839-1923) at the Hawes Evening School before graduating from high school in 1886. After graduation he spent two years as an assistant to one of Boston's finest art teachers, the Italian-born painter, illustrator, and muralist Tommaso Juglaris (1844-1925), who provided the young artist with "the severest training in drawing." (2)

When it came to discipline in drawing, however, Gallagher needed little prodding. A sketchbook was his constant companion from the time he was a teenager. Among his favorite early subjects were the sea and its ships, especially the area around South Boston's City Point. Louis A. Holman (1866-1939), an early biographer, described the young artist's sketching excursions:

 
When he was old enough to paddle he built a canoe and explored the 
waterways of his native place. Later he made several trips to the deep- 
sea fishing grounds, from which he always returned with his sketchbook 
filled with definite, living impressions of the life he had seen about 
him. (3) 

Gallagher's growing interest in painting the sea led him to his most influential mentor, Samuel Peter Rolt Triscott (1846-1925), an English-born artist who had studied at London's Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colour before establishing a Boston studio in 1880 and becoming a respected watercolor teacher. (4) Triscott's minimal use of underdrawing, avoidance of gouache highlights, breadth of handling, and fluent washes of transparent color were remarkable for their time, and he quickly gained a reputation as one of America's leading painters in the medium. (5) In 1885 he helped found the Boston Society of Water Color Painters; its annual exhibitions would soon make Boston one of the centers of watercolor painting and patronage. (6)