Frederick Bridgman

Frederick Bridgman competed in a tennis handicap demonstration at the 1900 Paris Olympics. Although an American citizen he spent much time overseas and in Paris for his career as an artist. Still in New York, he began an apprenticeship as an engraver with the American Banknote Company and at the same time studied at the Brooklyn Art Association and at the National Academy of Design. In 1867 he first went to Paris where he studied in the studio of the noted academic painter Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904), and then made Paris his headquarters. His first major success was the Paris Salon of 1870. He regularly spent summers in Britanny.

The Franco-Prussian War interrupted Bridgman’s career and forced him to leave Paris, going first to Brittany, then later to Spain. From there, he also made extensive trips to North Africa, dividing his time between Algeria and Egypt between 1872 and 1874, where he executed over 300 sketches, which became source material for his later oil paintings. He visited North Africa in the later 1870s and 1880s. He was known as “the American Gérôme” but would later adopt a naturalistic aesthetic, emphasizing bright colors and painterly brushwork. During these trips, he also discovered photography.

John Singer Sargent said that Bridgman’s studio was one of Paris’s must-see attractions. He remained popular as an orientalist painter in the United States and had one-man shows in 1890 at New York’s 5th Avenue Galleries and at The Art Institute of Chicago.

In 1907, Bridgman was appointed Officer of the Legion of Honor. After World War I, his fame began to fade and was unable to repeat his former success with his paintings. He retired to Lyon-la-Forêt in Normandy with his second wife.