He studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts with Thomas Eakins, and at the Académie Julian in Paris with Adolphe-William Bouguereau.

After leaving Paris, he moved to England, residing on the island of Sark in the English Channel, where he made his living as a seascape painter.

He had no studio until art collector William T. Evans (a railroad financier and President of the dry goods firm, Mills Gibbs Corporation) offered him one in exchange for one painting a year.

Waugh’s marinescapes were highly acclaimed, garnering him the Popular Prize at the Carnegie International Exhibition for five years in a row,[3] a feat accomplished by no other artist.

[1]: 154 Waugh was known to produce literary work, publishing a short poem in Pamela Colman Smith’s short-lived periodical The Green Sheaf;[12] a fairy tale in The English Illustrated Magazine;[13] and, in 1916, the book The Clan of Munes.