Paul Dougherty was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1877. His father, a lawyer and leader of the New York bar, expected his son to follow in his footsteps. Paul sketched and painted throughout his childhood, and by the age of eighteen had one of his paintings accepted into the annual exhibition of the National Academy. Regardless, he attended law school, graduated, and passed his bar exams in 1898. He was never to practice. Instead, he traveled with his brother to Europe and spent his time sketching and painting in London, Paris, Munich, Venice, and Florence. He returned to the U.S. in 1905 and settled on the coast of Maine. Paul Dougherty was elected as a member of the National Academy of Design, the oldest art organization in the United States, in 1907.

Dougherty was known as one of the leading marine painters of his time, and he had success as an artist all through his life. Mahonri Sharp Young wrote in 1978, “Everything came to him; all his pictures sold, he won all the prizes…. The rich delighted to honor him, and his wives were glamorous.”

He worked on location, capturing the sea in all of its moods. When he moved to California in 1931, he was world-famous. He and Paula Gates, his fourth wife, set up a permanent home and studio in the Carmel Highlands. He became actively involved in the formation of the Carmel Art Association, working on the Board of Directors and eventually serving as President in 1940. Paul Dougherty painted in Carmel and spent winters in Palm Springs until his death in 1947.

Member : Society of American Artists, 1905; Associate National Academy, 1906; National Academy, 1907; National Institute of Arts and Letters; Lotos Club; Salmagundi Club, 1907; American Watercolor Society; Century Association; National Arts Club; New Society of Artists; Bohemian Club; Carmel Art Association; Woodstock Art Association.

Exhibited : National Academy of Design, 1895, 1900, 1913 (gold), 1915 (prize), 1918 (prize), 1941 (Palmer prize); Boston Art Club, 1899; Macbeth Gallery, NYC; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 1900-32; Paris Salon, 1901; Carnegie Institute, 1905 (prize), 1912 (prize); Corcoran Gallery, 1907-35; Panama Pacific Exposition, San Francisco, 1915 (gold); Whitney Museum of American Art, 1918; Golden Gate Exposition, San Francisco, 1939; Art Institute of Chicago; Portland (ME) Museum, 1957 (retrospective); Portland Museum of Art (traveling exhibition) , 1979; Hickory Museum of Art, 1988.

Works held : Metropolitan Museum of Art; Corcoran Gallery of Art; Carnegie Institute; Toledo Museum of Art; National Gallery of Art; Brooklyn Institute Museum; Art Institute of Chicago; Buffalo Fine Arts Academy; Luxembourg Galleries, Paris; Montclair (NJ) Art Museum; Mem. Art Gallery, Rochester; Hackley Gallery, Muskegon, MI; City Art Museum, St. Louis; Minneapolis Institute; Omaha (NE) Museum; Phillips Mem. Gallery; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Portland (OR) Art Association; Museum of Art, Fort Worth; Public Library, Malden, MA; Addison Gallery of American Art; William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, Kansas City, MO.