Biography

FRANK WATSON WOOD was born in 1862 in Berwick-on-Tweed. A painter of shipping he studied at The Berwick School of Art and in South Kensington & Paris. In 1886 he was appointed Second Master at Newcastle School of Art and during 1889-1899 he was Headmaster of White School of Art . In 1900 he went to Portsmouth and painted naval subjects, accepting many commissions from naval officers for portraits of their ships and of naval exercises.

He exhibited at the Royal Academy and the Royal Society of Arts in Edinburgh where he lived. With the well-known watercolourist W. L. Wyllie, he was the guest of Admiral Sir Charles Madden on board H. M. S. Queen Elizabeth at the time of the surrender of the German fleet in 1918; he later made several sketches of German ships before scuttling. He accompanied King George VI and Queen Elizabeth on their Canadian tour in 1938.

He was known for his watercolours of sailing ships and various battleships, and he also painted effective, ‘wet’ watercolours of the Highlands and Borders.

He painted some oils but worked mostly in watercolour. He died in Strathyre, Perthshire, in 1953.

Examples of his work are held at the Greenwich Naval Museum and The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, holds a collection of his work.

Source: “Dictionary of Sea Painters” by E.H.H. Archibald (Antique Collectors Club Limited 1989)