Solon Francis Montecello Badger (1873-1919)

“Solon Francis Montecello Badger was known for many years by the misnomer “Samuel Finley Morse Badger.”

He was born in Boston and lived in nearby Charlestown with his father S. Badger, also a painter. As a teenager he lodged with ship portrait painter William P. Stubbs. For a time, Badger was apprenticed to a trunk maker, but after the business moved to the West, he took up ship painting.

He was largely self-taught as a painter, and he sailed Boston Harbor in a small yacht in order to measure vessels for his paintings. He sometimes worked from blueprints. Badger died from tuberculosis in 1919.

Museums with his works include the Maine Maritime Museum, the Peabody Essex Museum, Mystic Seaport, and the National Maritime Museum of Greenwich, England.Museums with his works include the Maine Maritime Museum, the Peabody Essex Museum, Mystic Seaport, and the National Maritime Museum of Greenwich, England.”  ~ Dictionary of Marine Artists, Dorothy Brewington