Badger, Solon F. M.

Solon Francis Montecello Badger (1873-1919) was known for many years by the misnomer "Samuel Finley Morse Badger."

Badger was born in Boston, and lived in nearby Charlestown with his father S. Badger, also a painter. As a teenager, he lodged with ship portrait painter William P. Stubbs. For a time, Badger was apprenticed to a trunk maker, but after the business moved to the West, he took up ship painting.

Badger was largely self-taught as a painter, and he sailed Boston Harbor in a small yacht in order to measure vessels for his paintings, while sometimes worked from blueprints.

Badger died from tuberculosis in 1919.

Museums with his works include:
Maine Maritime Museum
Peabody Essex Museum
Mystic Seaport
National Maritime Museum of Greenwich, England.

Source:
Dorothy Brewington, Dictionary of Marine Artists