John Francis Murphy

John Francis Murphy(December 11, 1853 – January 30, 1921) was an American landscape painter.

John Francis Murphy was born at Oswego, New York on December 11, 1853. In 1870, he moved to Chicago and became a sign painter then moving to New York City in 1875 where he taught himself painting. In 1887, he built a studio in Arkville, New York and founded the Pakatakan Artist Colony.

He first exhibited at the National Academy of Design in 1876, and was made an associate in 1885 and a full academician two years later. He became a member of the Society of American Artists in 1901 and of the American Watercolor Society. At first influenced by Wyant and Inness, after 1900 he attacked the modern problems of light and air, thus combining the old and new theories of landscape painting. His chief characteristics are extreme refinement and charm, poetic sentiment, and beauty of surface. His composition is simple and his rendering of soil unique. A past master of values, he preferred the quiet and subdued aspects of nature. He received numerous awards, including a gold medal at Charleston in 1902 and the Inness medal in 1910.

He died on January 30, 1921 of pneumonia in New York City.

Representative examples of his work are:

• October (Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington)
• The Path to the Village (National Gallery of Art, Washington)
• Indian Summer (National Gallery of Art, Washington)
• Indian Summer Oaks, 1887 (Cahoon Museum of American Art, Cotuit, Massachusetts)
• The Old Barn (Metropolitan Museum, New York)
• The Hill Top (Art Institute of Chicago)
• Afternoon Lights on the Hills (Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh)
• Neglected Lands (Buffalo Academy)
• Twilight
• Late September
• Golden Autumn (National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, Oklahoma City)
• The River Farm
• Tints of a Vanished Past, awarded the 1885 Second Hallgarten Prize by the National Academy of Design.

• Cahoon Museum of American Art: https://web.archive.org/web/20120326172806/http://www.cahoonmuseum.org/american-impressionism.php
• Sherman, Frederic Fairchild, American Painters of Yesterday and Today, 1919, Priv. print in New York. Chapter: Miniature landscapes by J. Francis Murphy: https://archive.org/stream/americanpainters00sheriala#page/n17/mode/2up