Frank C. Penfold (1849-1921)

Death of the First Born was lent to Le Musée de Pont-Aven in France in 1995 for the exhibition, Peintres américains en Bretagne 1864-1914, which was curated by David Sellin. Mr. Sellin is a scholar and art historian who has researched the American painters who lived and worked in the Pont-Aven art colony as contemporaries of Paul Gauguin. He believes the Center's painting is "a variant" of a painting "which was purchased for the French nation and destroyed by bombs in World War II."

David Sellin presented an illustrated talk entitled "La Bretagne et L'Amérique: American Painters in Brittany" on April 26, 1996 in the Student Center Fireside Lounge of Canisius College, located at 2001 Main Street. The talk, which was free and open to the public, was sponsored by the French Cultural Circle of Buffalo and the French Club of Canisius College.