The Roaring Forties

This picture was painted in January 1908, shortly after Waugh's return home after fifteen years abroad. It is a mid-ocean view showing waves in the region of the North Atlantic between the 40th and 50th degrees north latitude. Waugh did the painting in the New York loft belonging to W.S. Budworth, a fine arts shipper, but it was probably based on his observations of the ocean during his Atlantic crossing the previous fall. The title, originally suggested by Marcus Ward, a London acquaintance, was used in part two years earlier for a smaller seascape (Wichita State University, Kansas). The larger painting was exhibited several times in 1908 and 1909. While on view at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in March of 1909, the New York collector George A. Hearn, acting on the advice of the painter Henry B. Snell (1858–1943), went to see it. Hearn offered to buy the painting the next day. Its addition to the Museum that same year abetted Waugh's reputation.