Honoring Frederick J. Mulhaupt (1871-1938)

Frederick J. Mulhaupt is one of the twelve founders of Allied Artists of America.  Mulhaupt was  born in Rockport, Missouri in 1871.  He was the son of German parents.   Although the majority of Mulhaupt’s professional career was spent in New York City, Boston and East Gloucester, Massachusetts, his childhood was spent in a small unsettled Indian Territory on the border of Kansas.  Interestingly, artists born of German parents usually went to Munich to study their art; however, Mulhaupt chose to study in Paris and exhibited his paintings at the National Academy of Moret, France and St. Ives in Cornwall, England.  When he returned from Europe around 1890 he moved to Chicago where he lived for a decade.  Around 1904, this nomadic and reclusive artist declared the Salmagundi Club as his winter residence and spent his summers in Cape Ann, Massachusetts. Later in this decade, Mulhaupt painted in Paris and at St. Ives on the Cornish coast of England.  His impressionistic leanings were absorbed here and inspired his later work in Gloucester. In 1922, when he was in his early 50s,  Mulhaupt made Gloucester, Massachusetts his home.  It was here that he focused on painting landscapes and harbors.  In 1921 he married Agenes Leone Kingley, a teacher, and they had a son.  

Mulhaupt was, in fact, renowned for his Gloucester Harbor paintings done both in his studio and “en plain air”. He was well known particularly for capturing light and effects.  He was dubbed “Dean of the Cape Ann School” of artists. Mulhauapt became a member of the North Shore Art Association in 1923.  He also became an Associate of the National Academy in 1926 and he was a member of the National Arts Club, Salmagundi Club, Allied Artists, Palette & Chisel, Boston Arts Club, Rockport AA:American Art Association in Paris and the Artists Fund Association.  His awards include the Evans Prize at the Salmagundi Club (NY 1907) and its Porter Prize (1921). MN Minneapolis Prize (1924); awards at the Allied Artists of American NY 1925 and 1930; a landscape medal from the Philadelphia Sesqui-Centennial in 1925; the Bunce Prize, CT Academy of Fina Art in 1927; prizes at the Ogunquit AA 1931-1932. And more.      Frederick J. Mulhaupt’s main studio rested on the pilings as close to the ocean as possible.  Students flocked to this site.  The house at 47 Rocky Nick Avenue was his final studio where he died in1938. Mulhauapt's paintings have been valued at and sold for between $400 and $90,000. Most pieces around $25-30,000.

Art Historian- Elaine Clayman