John LaFarge Paintings

John LaFarge Painting Sale

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John LaFarge Biography

American Naturalist artist
born 1835 - died 1910

Student of: Thomas Couture (1815-1879), William Morris Hunt (1824-1879).
John LaFarge (1835-1910), American painter, muralist, stained-glass designer, and writer, was one of the most multifaceted American artists of his time.

John LaFarge was born in New York City on March 31, 1835. He graduated from Mount St. Mary's College in Emmitsburg, Md., in 1853, and studied law in 1854-1855. The artist went to Europe in 1856 to study and travel, remaining until the end of 1857. In Paris he met many prominent literary and artistic figures and studied painting briefly with Thomas Couture. In England, La Farge saw the painting of the Pre-Raphaelite artists and in Germany the rich collections of Old Masters. On his return to America the painter decided to take up painting and settled in Newport, R.I., where he studied with William Morris Hunt. In 1860 he married.

Though by today's standards some of John LaFarge paintings seem marred by an obvious eclecticism, at his best, especially in his landscapes, the artist shows an admirable feeling for the realism of light and the modeling and arrangement of forms, as well as skill in eliminating nonessential elements, as in his Bishop Berkeley's Rock (1868). John LaFarge painting sale varies from flower pieces that are often distinguished by a suave handling of watercolor, to self-consciously romantic themes of the mysterious and the frightening, as in his famous Wolf Charmer, which was used as an illustration in 1867 for the Riverside Magazine.

In 1886 La Farge and his friend the historian Henry Adams visited Japan. In 1890-1891 they traveled to the South Seas. The best of his South Sea paintings, done in both John LaFarge watercolor and oil, combine a sense of the exotic with the immediacy of precise anthropological observation, such as Maua, Our Boatman (1891).

Along with his varied artistic activities John LaFarge found time for writing and lecturing. His publications included An Artist's Letters from Japan (1897), The Higher Life in Art (1905), and Reminiscences of the South Seas (1911). A series of lectures the artist gave in 1893 was published as Considerations on Painting (1895). John LaFarge died in Providence, R.I., on Nov. 14, 1910.

Painter, decorator, and writer, b. at New York, 31 March, 1835; d. at Providence, Rhode Island, 14 Nov., 1910. His parents were John Frederick de LaFarge, a French naval officer, and Louise Josephine Binsse (de St. Victor). Though his interest in art was aroused during his college training at Mount St. Mary's and Fordham University,

Breadth of observation and structural conception, and a vivid imagination and sense of colour are shown by his mural decorations. His first painting in mural painting was done in Trinity Church, Boston, in 1873. Then followed his decorations in the Church of the Ascension (the large altarpiece) and St. Paul's Church, New York. For the State Capitol at St. Paul John LaFarge executed, in his seventy-first year, four great lunettes representing the history of religion, and for the Supreme Court building at Baltimore, a similar series with Justice as the theme. In addition there are his numberless minor paintings and water colours, notably those recording his extensive travels in the Orient and South Pacific.

LaFarge writings include: "The American Art of Glass" (a pamphlet); "Considerations on Painting" (New York, 1895); "An Artist's Letters from Japan" (New York, 1897); "The Great Masters" (New York); "Hokusai: a talk about Japanese painting" (New York, 1897); "The Higher Life in Art" (New York, 1908); "One Hundred Great Masterpieces"; "The Christian Story in Art"; and the unpublished "Letters from the South Seas"; and "Correspondence".

His labours in almost every field of art won for him from theFrench Government the Cross of the Legion of Honour and membership in the principal artistic societies of America, as well as the presidency of the Society of Mural Painters. Enjoying an extraordinary knowledge of languages (ancient and modern), literature, and art, by his cultured personality and reflective conversation John LaFarge greatly influenced all who knew him. Though naturally a questioner John LaFarge venerated the traditions of religious art, and preserved always his childlike Catholic Faith and reverence.