Born in 1867 in Marlborough, Massachusetts, Hermann Dudley Murphy began his artistic education at the Chauncey School and the Boston Museum School, studying under Otto Grundmann and Joseph DeCamp. Early in his career, he worked as an illustrator and was commissioned to accompany the Nicaraguan Canal Expedition from 1887 to 1888. After studying at the Académie Julian in Paris and being influenced by Whistler and the Aesthetic Movement, he became known for his tonalist landscapes and figure paintings, exhibiting at the Paris Salon in 1895. In 1897, Murphy returned to the U.S. with his wife, Caroline Bowles, and they settled in Winchester, Massachusetts. In 1903, he co-founded the "Carrig-Rohane" (Red Cliff) frame shop with Charles Prendergast, an enterprise that later moved to Boston and operated successfully until 1939. In addition to his painting, Murphy taught frame-making at the Byrdcliffe Colony and later served as a faculty member at Harvard University from 1931 to 1937. He became an Associate of the National Academy of Design in 1930 and an Academician in 1934, and was an active member of the Boston Art Club and the Copley Society. Murphy’s later work focused on floral still lifes, and he was also an avid canoeist, traveling extensively in Central America and the Caribbean.