Skip Navigation
A Rough Surf
Accession # 75.12.1
Artist William Trost Richards
Title A Rough Surf
Date after 1890
Medium Oil on composition board
Dimensions 8 3/16 x 14 3/8 in. (20.8 x 36.5 cm)
Credit Line Edith Ballinger Price
Location Visible Storage: Case 15, Screen B (Paintings)

Curatorial Remarks: Beginning in the mid-1880s, Richards turned his lifelong fascination with the sea to plein air marine studies in oil on small panels specially cut to fit into his sketch box. He produced hundreds of such seascapes, using free, vigorous brushwork to capture the constantly shifting light, atmosphere, and wave formations along various coasts he visited throughout the Northeast and abroad. Although Richards called these studies the “bare bones” for larger studio compositions, he also exhibited them as works of art in their own right.