In his seven-decade, prolific career as a painter, printmaker, and educator, Wright created over 240 works of art. His life was one of art and beauty, unbound curiosity, tremendous intensity and drive, humor and wit, profound generosity and fellowship, and a deep love of family.
Frank (John Franklin Wright, Jr.) was born October 10, 1932 in Washington, DC. He grew up in Kenilworth, in far North-East DC, with his parents John Franklin Wright, Sr., Margaret Young Wright, and younger sister Rosalind.
Wright, a sixth-generation Washingtonian, graduated from Eastern High School, DCPS (1950) where he studied with Washington Color School painter Leon Berkowitz. He pursued a robust educational path made possible through scholarships and fellowships, earning his BA in Fine Arts (1954) from American University, where he met his wife of 63 years, Mary Dow Wright, and studied with Sarah Baker, Ben Summerford, and Bob Gates.
The National Society of Arts and Letters, Washington, DC Chapter awarded Frank, age 17, his first scholarship to American University. Frank’s generosity to his students is rooted in his own experiences as a young man. From junior high school through his post-graduate studies, he benefited from, and was extremely grateful to, the many teachers who opened his eyes, developed his skills, and guided him towards scholarships and fellowships. If it hadn’t been for these mentors and opportunities, Frank might not have been the first person in his family to attend college, much less have the rich and rewarding learning experiences that so influenced his career and life path.
He received his MA in Art History (1960) from the University of Illinois under Allen Weller after spending two years of thesis research on fifteenth-century Italian cassone with Bernard Berenson at his Villa I Tatti, outside of Florence, where he and Mary were wed in 1957.
Wright exhibited widely in DC and nationally, including notable solo exhibitions at the Corcoran Gallery of Art (1981), most recently at the Cosmos Club (2019), and at Kennedy Galleries, NYC, which represented Wright for many years. Occasionally he accepted commissions, notably for NASA and the US House of Representatives. Wright’s work can be found in many public and private collections.
Wright was awarded a multi-year Paul J. Sachs Fellowship from the Print Council of America to study printmaking—connoisseurship, history, and practice. He worked with the distinguished print collections (1959—1960) of Lessing J. Rosenwald (at Alverthorpe and the National Gallery of Art) and the Fogg Museum, Harvard University, where he completed curatorial and connoisseurship coursework with John Coolidge. He then spent 3 years learning the craft of printmaking with innovative printmaker William Stanley Hayter at his Paris Atelier 17 (1961—1964). There he focused on two techniques: the meticulous, traditional craft of engraving and the innovative deep-bite etching process, developed by Hayter.
In the mid 1960s, Wright returned to DC and established his studio, resumed teaching, and started a family. While he focused on engraving and deep-bite etching, depicting mostly allegorical subjects, by the late 60s, his young family became increasingly important in his life and art. Wright’s intimate family interiors, such as Suzanne Reading the Funnies, 1974 and The Letter, 1976 marked a renewed focus on oil painting in the spirit of the Dutch Master Johannes Vermeer.
Wright’s impact as an educator is among his greatest legacies. He loved teaching, from master drawing techniques to design, printmaking, 15th century Italian painting, the history of photography, comics, narrative art, and the list goes on. He taught thousands of students over 60 years and gave many lectures and gallery talks. He retired at age 82 as Professor Emeritus of Drawing and Graphic Arts from the George Washington University, where he had taught since 1970.
Wright provided students with more than knowledge and drawing technique, he was passionate about expanding his students’ horizons. He shared his artist’s life, his books, and immersive experiences from museum visits to the nearby National Gallery, to Charlie Chaplin movies shown in class, to field trips to private collections, and in one rare instance, the opportunity to hold a Rembrant print in your hands.
He was also a generous mentor, helping young artists perfect their craft, motivating them with the real possibility of an artistic career. He was an active connector, getting former students jobs, internships, and commissions. This came naturally from Wright’s esprit de corps, rooted in his own experiences as a young man. From junior high school through post-graduate studies, he benefited from, and was extremely grateful to, the many teachers who opened his eyes, developed his skills, and guided him towards opportunities. Many of Wright’s former students became close friends and went on to successful careers as artists including Danni Dawson, Mike Francis, Rob Liberacci, Marian Osher, and Brad Stevens.
Wright delighted in visual narrative depicting everyday moments, imbuing history with life, and capturing the light and atmospheric beauty of the natural world. His realism, often sparked by photographs, goes beyond what the camera’s lens or the human eye can capture. Through his compositions, he invites you to take your time exploring the image, to linger over vignettes and small details. With a methodical process and master craftsmanship, his careful planning led to canvases of subtle, yet bold compositions, creating mini abstractions that build into a realistic whole. He was a painter’s painter, relishing the luminous colors he could achieve from thin layers of oil glazes or bravura brushwork.
Sometimes intensley quiet, other times animated with conversation and wine, Wright’s studio was the beating heart of his unwavering, artistic practice, several paintings, and abundant fellowship from 1964—2018. For over thirty years, he worked from his 1st floor studio in the historic LeDroit Building, framed by large windows overlooking the National Portrait Gallery on F Street, NW. When the building was rehabbed in 1996 (into a new multi-use building including the Spy Museum), Wright moved his studio to Columbia Plaza, near GWU, which served as his artistic center for another 22 years.
An artist-historian, Wright made a significant contribution to our understanding of DC’s past with more than 80 paintings, almost ½ of his oeuvre, dedicated to his city. The sixth-generation Washingtonian painted both his DC of the present, while also reimagining a forgotten DC past as a bustling present on canvas.
Wright researched historical photographica, letters and ephemera, (and sometimes chipped paint off old structures). He then synthesized these dusty records and transformed them into atmospheric life on canvas, capturing the essence of history as it unfolded and gifting us with a truly unique time-traveling experience of DC. In Wright’s paintings, you might come across 1860s Union soldiers relaxing on what is now Roosevelt Island, or a sweeping aerial view from the unfinished Washington Monument in 1884 overlooking Foggy Bottom and Georgetown, or a parade down Pennsylvania Avenue celebrating the end of the Civil War or the inauguration of FDR.
You might also come across Wright. With droll humor, Wright liked to paint himself into history as a soldier, parade reveler, or a casual gentleman in 1900 walking across F Street in front of the patent attorneys’ office building, which would one day house his studio. Interestingly, Wright’s paintings of his contemporary DC of the 1970s—2000s, his portrayals of his favorite places from Montrose Park to the Potomac River, to his F Street studio, are now historical documents of the city’s past. His epic, 5-panel polyptych of 9th Street, NW (1980) pits the “new” mammoth FBI Building against the now long-gone parking lots and row of brightly-colored strip clubs. (Psst, see if you can spot Wright.)
Wright exhibited widely in DC and nationally, including notable solo exhibitions at the Corcoran Gallery of Art (1981), most recently at the Cosmos Club (2019), and at Kennedy Galleries, NYC, which represented Wright for many years. Occasionally he accepted commissions, notably for NASA and the US House of Representatives. Wright’s work can be found in many public and private collections.
Fairhaven, MD on the Chesapeake Bay was Wright’s DC retreat and the beloved subject of many works. Paris, where he lived in the 1960s, was Wright’s 2nd city. He returned regularly to rejuvenate, visit favorite artworks, and come home with ideas for new paintings.
Wright loved people and built lasting friendships with former students, colleagues, and people he encountered in everyday life. He was also a voraciously curious man with many interests that often intersected and deepened his passion for art. He found inspiration in countless artists and illustrators from Vermeer, Durer, and Rembrandt, to Bonnard, N.C. Wyeth, and Winsor McCay to name but a few, and frequented museums for first-hand study. He collected 19th century photographica, including an extensive collection of daguerreotypes, and from years of weekend antiquing, he also acquired 18th and 19th century diaries, account books, newspapers, city directories, and ephemera. Each new piece of the past sparked an investigation sleuthing in academic archives, city records, phone calls with elderly, wise colleagues, as well as visits to graveyards and (potentially) still-living relatives.
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