Paul Dougherty 

(1877-1947)

Once in a great while, an art collector’s dream of discovering a large quantity of work by an important artist comes true. In 1966, one of my closest Cape Ann friends, Tom Nicholas, informed me that the daughter of prominent marine artist Paul Dougherty lived nearby and had a large quantity of her father’s work that might require some restoration and might be available for purchase. So off we went to visit Lisa Dougherty Coon, who graciously allowed us to examine a large number of her father’s works. Many needed a light cleaning, which we organized, and she was gracious enough to allow me to buy two pieces. Dougherty was a very competent, dedicated artist who, I suspect, suffered, like all marine artists of the era, from comparison to Frederick Waugh. Dougherty was a founder and prominent member of the Carmel Art Association in California after leaving the East coast in 1932. As a highly successful artist and socially appealing person, Dougherty married four times. In 1978, the artist Mahonri Young wrote, “Everything came to him; all his pictures sold, he won all the prizes. The rich delighted to honor him, and his wives were glamorous.”