Frank H. Desch

Frank H. Desch was an American painter and illustrator, best known for his portraits of women. Born in 1873 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Desch was ill throughout his childhood and did not begin proper training until age 20. He attended classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and later studied under William Merritt Chase (1849–1916) and Charles Webster Hawthorne (1872–1930). He also studied with Louis-François Biloul (1874–1947) in Paris. In addition to painting, Desch’s pastel illustrations were widely distributed on magazine covers, in books, on decorative fans, on postcards, advertisements, and calendars. In 1916, he moved to Provincetown and became associated with the town’s circle of Impressionist painters.¹ His wife, Ruth, and sister-in-law, Alice, served as frequent models for his portraits, and the breathtaking view from his home, the second-highest house on Cape Cod at the time, often featured in the background of his paintings.² A critic in the magazine Art and Progress described Desch’s portraits as “a most successful effort to render the vibrant color of the plein air painter and yet with no loss of other qualities such as design or composition.”³ He was a member of the Allied Artists of America, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Salmagundi Club, the Provincetown Art Association, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and he frequently exhibited at their venues.⁴ Frank Desch passed away in 1934. He left an enduring impact on the Pennsylvania Impressionist movement through his atmospheric and evocative compositions. Desch’s work is part of the collections of the Butler Institute of American Art, in Youngstown, Ohio, and the Salmagundi Museum of American Art, in New York City.

1. Ronald A. Kuchta and Dorothy Gees Seckler, Provincetown Painters, 1890’s–1970’s, (Everson Museum of Art, 1977), 280.
2. Norm Platnick, The Fairest Flower: A Collector’s Guide to Frank Desch, (Enchantment Ink, 2015), 4.
3. Eugene Castello, “The Annual Exhibition of the Fellowship, P.A.F.A,” Art and Progress 5, no. 9 (1914): 333.
4. Peter Falk, Who Was Who in American Art, vol 1, (Sound View Press, 1999), 897.