Boggs was born in Springfield, Ohio, and as a boy he moved to New York City where his father was a newspaper executive. His first job was as a wood engraver at Harper's magazine. At age 21, he decided to go to Paris. He enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts, where he studied painting under Jean-Léon Gérôme. Boggs returned to the United States two years later to find the art world unsettled. In 1880 he returned to Paris, where he spent much of his career, gaining French citizenship in 1923. Though he lived abroad, Boggs exhibited regularly in the major juried shows in Boston, Philadelphia, New York, and Chicago. Boggs is best known for landscape paintings with the loose brushwork and light palette characteristic of American impressionist painters, though his use of color was restrained.
