Meadowlark Gallery: The Artist Biographies

Aiden Lassell Ripley (1896-1969)
A. Lassell Ripley was a Boston painter, watercoloist and printmaker best-known for his sporting pictures and his American Scene paintings of Boston and New England. In 1919, Ripley, who was born in Wakefield, Massachusetts, began his studies under Frank W. Benson and Philip Leslie Hale at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. At the end of his terms he won the Paige Travelling Fellowship which provided for nearly two years of European study from December of 1923 until 1925. He was accompanied by his wife, Doris, who he had just wed. On his return to Boston, he received his first one-man show at the Guild of boston Artists in 1926 and remained closely associated with the Guild for the rest of his career. A. J. Philpot of the Boston Globe reported: "The flash from obscurity to fame has come the past week to Aiden L. Ripley, a young Boston painter, has given an unusual thrill to the artists and connoisseurs of this city. In a week he was transformed from an art student to a painter of rank with the foremost of the day in watercolors and his works were being prchased not only by connoisseurs, but by some of the foremost artists in Boston--the people who know." As his fame continued, Ripley was singled out by the reviewer for the Boston Post in the St. Botolph exhibition of February 1927: "Several canvases by Aiden L. Ripley are especially notable. Notre Dame is extremely effective. The beautiful cathedral is viewed from the distance, across a bridge. In the foreground the river is crowded with boats and the walks along the bank with strolling people. Brilliant sunlight and cool shadows are beautifully painted in the canvas called Cataracts--Toledo. the churning water, blue and green and again white, swirls about the resevoir, while in the foreground are ruins of ancient buildings." Also in the foreground is Mrs. Ripley on her extended honeymoon. The two traveled through Europe, including Spain, and Ripley produced a large number of the watercolors that were being touted upon his return as well as a smaller number of oil paintings--including Cataracts--Toledo--on the 1923-25 trip. The success of the exhibitions in 1926 and 1927 probably encouraged the Ripleys to embard again in 1927 for a summer in Scandanavia.
View high resolution images of works by Aiden Lassell Ripley when available.