Washington Assumes Command - Etching on Paper by Ralph Ludwig Boyer

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Washington Assumes Command - Etching in Ink on Paper

Historical engraving by Ralph Ludwig Boyer (American, 1879-1952). George Washington is … Read more Washington Assumes Command - Etching in Ink on Paper

Historical engraving by Ralph Ludwig Boyer (American, 1879-1952). George Washington is shown holding a sword, with an army standing at attention in front of him. Other army officers are standing behind him, some on horseback. This piece is from the portfolio ​“The Bicentennial Pageant of George Washington”

Signed "R. L. Boyer" in the lower right corner in pencil.
Numbered "8" in the lower right.
Presented in a new black mat.
Mat size: 16"H x 20"W
Paper size: 14.5"H x 19.5"W
Several versions of this print art a part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum collection.

Ralph Ludwig Boyer (American, 1879-1952) was active/lived in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. He was known as a painter, illustrator, muralist, and camouflage artist.

Ralph Ludwig Boyer was born on July 23, 1879, in Camden NJ. He attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 1895-1901 and from 1904-1910. Among his teachers were William Merritt Chase, Cecilia Beaux, and Thomas Anshutz.

Among the other students there were James H. Daugherty (who later worked as a ship camoufleur during World War I), and Rebecca Hunt, who would soon become his wife. He also studied briefly in Europe (Spain, London, and Amsterdam), made possible by having won the Cresson Scholarship from the Pennsylvania Academy.

He began his professional career as a portrait painter and book illustrator in Philadelphia. When the US entered WWI, he volunteered to work as a civilian ship camouflage artist. He was assigned to a post in Baltimore, were among his fellow camoufleurs were his friend and former classmate Daugherty (from New York),, W.S. Gephart (New York), Henry G. Pierce (Boston). Griffith B. Coale (Baltimore), Jesse Mason (Baltimore), and Carol Sax (Ottumwa IA).

He became the head of that unit. Nearly all the online descriptions of him mistakenly claim that Boyer served in “a Marine Corps Camouflage Division,” but this is the result of confusing the term “marine” camouflage (which simply means naval camouflage) with “Marine,” as specifically used in “Marine Corps.” They are not the same.

After the war, Boyer and Hunt married and moved to New York, where they lived for several years in Greenwich Village. He resumed his work as a portrait painter and an illustrator of various well-known magazines. In 1923, they settled in Westport CT, were living next door was the illustrator and WWI US Army camouflager Kerr Eby. Boyer and Eby became friends, and later, in the 1930s, they collaborated on a set of murals for the Bridgeport (CT) Brass Company. Following that, Boyer was hired as the company’s staff artist and designer, a position he held for the rest of his life.

In addition to painting murals during the mid-phase of his life (including stained glass windows and mosaics), Boyer was also prolific as a printmaker, and many of his illustrations were completed as drypoints and etchings. During the Depression Era, he completed a large number of public works for the WPA, perhaps as many as 180 prints and sculptures. See less