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| John La Farge Study for Decorative Panel ca. 1875-1900 watercolor Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| John La Farge Study for Stained Glass Window ca. 1875-1900 watercolor Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| John La Farge Study for Skylight ca. 1875-1900 watercolor Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| John La Farge Peonies Blowing in the Wind (window) 1886 glass and lead (created for London studio of Lawrence Alma-Tadema) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| John La Farge Fish and Flowering Branch (window) ca. 1890 glass and lead Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| John La Farge Butterflies and Foliage (window) 1889 glass and lead Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
"John La Farge was the eldest child in a family of urbane, affluent French immigrants who had earlier settled in New York City. He was born in 1835, and his education was thorough, with attention to literature, French, and Roman Catholicism. He received drawing lessons from his grandfather and training in watercolor technique from an unknown English artist. Initially, though, he saw his artistic practice only as an avocation, a diversion during his teenage years at Mount Saint Mary's College in Maryland and Saint John's College in New York. Afterwards, he studied law in New York City, while experimenting with oil painting."
"By 1856, however, La Farge had left for Paris, where his family connections helped to secure his introduction to that city's elite literary and artistic circles. Indeed, his later career would be marked by its preoccupation with sometimes esoteric intellectual and aesthetic matters. While abroad, he traveled in northern Europe, copied the Old Masters, and spent a few weeks in the studio of Thomas Couture. The illness of his father, however, necessitated his return to the United States. After briefly taking up the study of law again in 1857, he rented a studio (which he maintained for the rest of his career) in New York's Tenth Street studio building, where he met the building's architect Richard Morris Hunt. This was the likely impetus for La Farge's decision in 1859 to travel to Newport, Rhode Island, and study painting with the architect's brother, William Morris Hunt."
"La Farge married Margaret Perry in 1860, and for most of the rest of his career, his family life was centered in Rhode Island. In this seminal period of the late 1860s he cultivated an interest in Japanese art and explored a highly personal style of still-life and plein-air landscape painting. His wide interests eventually led him to innovations in other media as well. By 1875, for example, he was working in stained glass, and a year later, he directed the decorative program for Trinity Church, Boston, designed by the architect H.H. Richardson. La Farge became a leader in the mural movement, and his commissions for churches, government buildings, and opulent private homes were a welcome source of income in later years. This work usually kept him in Boston or New York, however, separated from his family. . . . Nearly always in need of money to pay the many employees required for his glass and mural projects, he found that his writing helped cover these mounting bills. He was also known as a lecturer on art matters, although this great variety of activities became increasingly taxing in his final years. He continued to take on large commissions, however, even as his fragile health and fiscal insolvency became critical."
– from the artist's biography published in the Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
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| John La Farge Mural Design - Angels representing Adoration ca. 1890-1900 watercolor Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| John La Farge Mural Design - Angels representing Praise ca. 1890-1900 watercolor Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| John La Farge Mural Design - Angels representing Thanksgiving ca. 1890-1900 watercolor Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| John La Farge Mural Design - Angels representing Love ca. 1890-1900 watercolor Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| John La Farge Angel and Magdalene ca. 1890 watercolor Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| John La Farge The Three Wise Men 1878 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| John La Farge Woman bending down Branch ca. 1881 oil on canvas (study for Cornelius Vanderbilt house, New York) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| John La Farge Moonlit Seascape ca. 1883 watercolor Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |