# William Lees Judson artist context and auction value notes

Canonical page: https://appraisily.com/artist/william-lees-judson/
Profile generated: 2026-08-24T18:53:57.369Z
Quality: medium confidence, adequate sources

## Artist identity

- Nationality: American
- Common media: Painting, Stained glass in the Judson Studios context; personal execution by William Lees Judson is not established for individual studio objects

## Portrait

![William Lees Judson](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Professor_William_Judson_%28cropped%29.jpg)
Pierce, C.C. (Charles C.), 1861-1946 · Public domain
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Professor_William_Judson_(cropped).jpg

## About William Lees Judson

William Lees Judson (1842–1928) was an American painter and art educator whose career became closely connected with Los Angeles. USC-linked archival metadata identifies him as the founder of the Los Angeles College of Fine Arts, which became part of the University of Southern California in 1897, and records his arrival in the Los Angeles area in 1893. He also founded Judson Studios with his three sons during the mid-1890s. The family workshop developed a lasting identity in stained glass, while Judson himself is documented as a painter; a circa-1910 archival photograph shows him working outdoors beside the Colorado River. Collectors may therefore encounter his name in several contexts: paintings attributed to Judson, historical material related to Southern California art education, and objects associated with the Judson family studio. These categories should remain distinct because a studio association does not, by itself, demonstrate William Lees Judson’s personal authorship.

## Common works and media

Painting is the clearest individually supported category: an authority record identifies Judson as a painter, and an archival photograph documents him painting outdoors. Stained glass belongs to a separate studio-associated context because Judson Studios specialized in that medium. An object linked to the studio should not automatically be catalogued as a personally executed William Lees Judson work. The collected sources do not document specific series, editions, recurring subjects, or named works.

## Market and appraisal context

Appraisal should begin with identity and authorship. A painting attributed to William Lees Judson should be evaluated separately from stained-glass material carrying only a Judson Studios connection. The collected sources establish him as a painter and studio founder, but they do not provide lot-level cataloguing, condition reports, sale dates, realized prices, or a documented price history. Useful comparisons should therefore involve public auction records matched to the same artist identity, medium, work type, and level of attribution. Object-specific documentation is especially important when a work is connected with the broader family studio. No reliable price range, trend, or scarcity conclusion can be drawn from this source pack alone.

## Appraisily data basis

Appraisily artist pages combine public artist-identity research with auction records, auction-house context, sale dates, realized prices, and comparable lots when those records are available. For William Lees Judson, the present identity evidence is stronger than the collected lot-level market evidence.

## Sources

- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q41484046
- Getty Vocabulary Program: https://vocab.getty.edu/page/ulan/500272242
- Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Professor_William_Judson_(cropped).jpg
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judson_Studios
- VIAF: https://viaf.org/viaf/173622525/
- ISNI: https://isni.org/isni/0000000123677725
- RKD: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/artists/87245
- Bibliothèque nationale de France: https://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb17002210g
- Appraisily: https://appraisily.com/artist/william-lees-judson/