A selection of five paintings from the permanent collection showcasing the work of artist and Oshkosh resident J. Frank Waldo.

J. Frank Waldo was born on May 16, 1835 in Chelsea, Vermont. Around 1859 Waldo moved to Sumner, Kansas and married Esther Maria Bartholomew. The couple had six children.

In 1861 Waldo operated a photography studio in Central City, Colorado. By 1863 the Waldo family had moved to Racine, Wisconsin and one year later moved again to Oshkosh, Wisconsin. In Oshkosh, Frank worked for Rudd & Holden Carriage Company as a carriage and sign painter until 1866. Around 1871 Frank studied at the Chicago Academy of Design.

In Oshkosh, Frank took art lessons from Mrs. Thomas P. Russell, a well-known local artist. He would also begin working independently as an artist and fresco painter. In 1883 his studio and all his works were destroyed in a fire.

About 1885 Frank left Oshkosh and moved to Chicago, Illinois. It is not known if he divorced Esther, but she remained behind in Oshkosh and is listed in the city directories until 1905. At an unknown later date he married Celinda Ann Doty Cater.

Frank would move to California in the late 1880s, but around 1897 moved to Brooklyn, New York. In 1902 his works were exhibited in the National Academy of Design, the American Watercolor Society and the New York Watercolor Club. A poem Frank wrote in 1910 lists his home as Arlington, Massachusetts. From 1915 to 1920 Frank lived in with his second wife in California where he died in Los Angeles on May 2, 1920 at the age of 85.