Walter Lofthouse Dean was born in
Lowell, MA on June 14, 1854 and died at home on March 13, 1912
in East Gloucester, MA. He is remembered for his landscapes, coastal
scenes, marines, harbors and boats. Dean's family moved to Boston
when he was a young boy, but his strong ties to Lowell made him
a constant visitor. He spent many hours on the water and became
an expert sailor at a young age.
Dean entered MIT to study architecture
but soon left to enroll in the Massachusetts Normal School. He
worked hard and, upon graduating, he landed a position as a drawing
teacher at the Boston Free Evening School. He worked there for
two years and left for an appointment at Purdue University in
Indiana, a position he held for almost three years. Dean's yearning
for the coast led him back to Boston where he worked as a marine
artist.
With encouragement, he left for Paris
in 1882, where he studied at the Academe Julian under Gustave
Boulanger and Jules Joseph Lefebvre. Achile Oudinot, a friend
of Corot, was a teacher and friend to Dean for one year. Dean's
studies led him along the coasts of Italy, France, Belgium, Holland
and England before he once again returned to Boston.
Dean bought a yacht he named Undine
in 1885, and in 1887 he was off to Gloucester to paint coastal,
fishing, and harbor scenes which, of course, included a yacht
or two. He kept a summer studio in East Gloucester for almost
thirty years and, just a year before his death, he built a house
near his studio. Dean worked in his Boston studio during the winter
months and then, during the warmer months, he sailed his "studio"
along the coast.
Exhibitions were sparse up to his early
thirties and his first major exhibit was at the Boston Art Club
Show of 1887. Dean exhibited with the Boston Art Club from 1879
to 1881 and then again, when he returned from his European studies,
from 1886 to 1909.
Dean was a member of the Boston Art
Club; Paint and Clay Club; Copley Society, 1906; Salmagundi Club,
NY; and several Massachusetts North Shore Art Societies. In addition
to the Boston Art Club, he exhibited with the National Academy
of Design 1881-96; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; Massachusetts
Charitable Mechanics Association, 1887 (medal), 1895 (gold); and
the St. Louis Exposition, 1904 (medal).
One of Dean's paintings, "Peace,"
by a legislative act approved May 14, 1928, hangs in an office
of the House Committee on Naval Affairs, an appropriate venue
for a work produced by a man who lived and worked on and by the
sea.
