Painter, sculptor and illustrator William Sergeant Kendall was born in 1869 in the Bronx, New York. In 1883, he began his studies at the Brooklyn Art Guild and the following year enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts to study under realist painter Thomas Eakins. In 1886, he returned to New York and joined the Art Students League. Kendall moved to Paris in 1888 where he worked under Luc-Olivier Merson. Kendall joined Académie Julian where he studied for three years before enrolling at the École des Beaux-Arts. Like many of his contemporaries, Kendall frequently traveled to Brittany for its coastal scenery and the opportunity to paint Breton peasants in their distinctive dress. "By the Sea" is likely the product of one of these northwestern excursions. The paintings which first brought Kendall international recognition featured Breton peasant girls. Portraits of women and children were a subject he would return to often over the course of his career. After an honorable mention at the Paris Salon in 1891, Kendall was offered a position at Cooper Union in New York. He took up a teaching post there in 1892, established his own studio and eventually moved to New Haven, Connecticut, where he became head of the Yale School of Fine Arts. William Sergeant Kendall paintings are in numerous museum collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Baltimore Museum of Art, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.