A Life Forged in Tragedy and Realism Frank Duveneck, born Frank Decker in 1848 amidst the bustling river town of Covington, Kentucky, was an artist whose life story is as compelling as the powerfully rendered canvases he created. His early years were profoundly shaped by loss; the untimely death of his father to cholera when he was barely a year old indelibly altered his trajectory. This formative tragedy, coupled with his mother’s subsequent marriage to Joseph “Squire” Duveneck – from whom he adopted his enduring name – instilled within him a remarkable resilience and perhaps, an enhanced s…