FINE ARTIST RESEARCH
Hugh Edgar Hegh was born in Grimsby, England on November 21, 1909. He and his family sailed to the United States in 1918. He died in Cambridge, Massachusetts on September 22, 2000.
From 1934-35, Hegh was a WPA artist assigned to Acadia National Park. He was part of the 154th Civilian Conservation Camp at Bar Harbor’s Eagle Lake. The CCC constructed and maintained many unique features of the park. He completed more than a dozen oil paintings, watercolors and sketches documenting life at the CCC Camp and the landscape of Acadia National Park.
Four of Hegh’s paintings from that time hung in the office of Congressman Ralph Owen Brewster and “Sawing Wood in Winter” (1935) was displayed at the White House at the request of Eleanor Roosevelt (currently in the Smithsonian American Art Museum Collection).
It is thought that the rest of Hegh’s art from that time was divested by the government in 1944 along with thousands of pieces of WPA art. (see www.artbusiness.com/wpa.html)
Hegh received a B.F.A in painting and printmaking from Yale University in 1940 and an M.F.A in 1942. He and fellow Yale art students were featured in a Life magazine article February 12, 1940.
In 1942, Hegh enlisted in the army. During WWII it is said that he flew over 30 missions in a B29 bomber over Japan shooting aerial photos. That period started his love affair with Japan. He spent most of the last 50 years of his life there.
● I am currently trying to locate Hegh’s artwork and compiling more biographical information. If you have any information, please contact me at: