Paris antique, Montmartre et ses boutiques, par Frank Will, 1930

Frank Will  

Painter and watercolorist. Nanterre (Hauts-de-Seine) March 13, 1900 - Clichy (Seine) December 29, 1950. Son of the painter Frank Boggs of American origin, Frank-Will signed his beginnings Franque, William Frank, or just Frank; it was in 1919 that he definitively adopted his pseudonym. Between 1914 and 1918, he stayed with his father, boulevard de Clichy. In 1916, he dedicated himself more specifically to watercolor, which constitutes the best of his work, more than the sometimes heavy and impasto oils, except perhaps the last ones. The following year, he met Gen Paul, whom he influenced in his beginnings, and Leprin who would become his friends. Gen Paul led him to the famous Chignolle, fanfare of local painters. Impossible to list all the addresses he had on the Butte. During the war he lived at 37, rue Pigalle, then settled finally at 1, boulevard de Clichy, above the café des Artistes. Pierre Bureau, in his book on Leprin recounts that Frank-Will who inherited in 1926, the sum of 80,000F in cash, went to "place" it at Manière, rue Caulaincourt, with the charge to withdraw from this sum the cost of his consumption as well as that of his friends. Needless to say that it took only a few months to exhaust the inheritance. Denis Coisne, from Bourg-en-Bresse, published the only known monograph of an artist who is often worth more than his reputation as an easy painter. It must be said that his production was abundant for a career all too short, he died at 50. His watercolors could be seen at Georges Petit (1929), at Terrisse, Keller and Yvonel, as well as at Henri Bureau in his gallery at 54, rue de Rochechouart. Montmartre and Paris were his favorite subjects, however he also painted seascapes, boats and galleons, the Normandy coast (1922), orchestras (1927), the province, Moret sur Loing, the Parisian region, Mantes (1928 and 1938), "bacchanals" (1941), and Morocco (1948). Buried in Père-Lachaise, near his parents.