Emile A. Gruppe

American (1869-1978)

Born in 1896, the son of renowned painter Charles Gruppé, Emile studied with George Bridgman, at the Art Students League, at the National Academy of Design, in Woodstock, NY under John F. Carlson, and in Massachusetts with Charles Hawthorne, Richard Miller, and George Chapman.

He was a member of the Salmagundi Club; North Shore Arts Association; Gloucester Society of Art; Rockport Art Association; Longboat Key Art Association, St. Augustine Art Academy; and the Woodstock Art Association.

Gruppé is best known for his impressionistic renderings of fishing boats docked at Gloucester and Rockport. and his Florida scenes where he wintered. In 1942, he founded the Gruppé Summer School in Gloucester and was very sough after as a teacher and mentor to other artists who aspired to paint en plein air.

He exhibited at numerous venues during his long and illustrious career, winning prizes at many of these venues, including the National Academy of Design from 1916-1938, Allied Artists of America 1934-1944, Art Institute of Chicago, Salmagundi Club, North Shore Arts Association, Miami Beach Art Club, Ogunquit Art Club, and the Bridgeport Art Association.

Emile Gruppés works can be found in the White House, Los Angeles Museum of Art, Richmond Art Museum, the Hickory Museum of Art, Springville Museum of Art, Whistler House Museum of Art, Montclair Art Museum and other collections, private and public.

Gruppé died in 1978 at the age of 82. In one of his last interviews revealed his philosophy of painting: “If you want exacting details in a painting, than you might as well look at a photograph. I make an impression on a canvas, and let one’s imagination fill in the details.”