George Emerick Essig was born in Philadelphia and reputedly studied with the marine painters James Hamilton (1819-1878) and Edward Moran (1829-1901). He also became a specialist in marine scenes and often painted scenes of the New Jersey coast.

Essig exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 1876 to 1888. He moved to Atlantic City, possibly around 1880, and practiced dentistry in Ventnor.

Paintings by him once hung in the Dennis Hotel and Chalfont-Haddon Hall in Atlantic City. Essig's primary medium was watercolor, but in the late 1880s and early '90s he made etchings that were usually based on the subjects of his paintings.

Some sources give his death date as 1919, but more recent information states that he was still living in Atlantic City in 1925. A large number of Essig's works are owned by the Reading Public Museum and Art Gallery in Reading, Pennsylvania.

Notes: 1. See Peter Falk's Who Was Who in American Art, vol. 1, p. 1059, and William H. Gerdts, Jr., Painting and Sculpture in New Jersey (Princeton, N.J.: D. Van Nostrand Co., 1964), p. 179.

Born September 2, 1883 in Philadelphia

Education : Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art with Moran and Hamilton.

Holdings : Mariner's Museum; Philadelphia Maritime Museum.