John La Farge American, 1835-1910

John La Farge was a highly influential American artist, writer, and theorist best known for his innovations in stained glass and his contributions to late 19th-century American mural painting, watercolor, and decorative arts. A central figure in the American Renaissance, La Farge helped shape a distinctly American synthesis of fine art, craft, and intellectual inquiry.

Born in New York City to a cultured Franco-American family, La Farge received a classical education and initially trained in law before turning to art. He studied painting in Paris in the 1850s, where he encountered the work of the French academic and early Symbolist traditions. Upon returning to the United States, he developed a broad artistic practice that included easel painting, large-scale murals, book illustration, criticism, and design.

La Farge is best known for his groundbreaking work in stained glass. In the 1870s, he pioneered the use of opalescent glass, which allowed for unprecedented depth of color, texture, and painterly modulation without reliance on surface paint. This innovation transformed the medium and positioned stained glass as a major art form in the United States. His often depicting religious, allegorical, or floral subjects, are notable for their luminous complexity and refined compositional structure.

Alongside his glass work, La Farge produced murals and decorative commissions for churches, public buildings, and private interiors, collaborating with architects and designers associated with the American Renaissance. His murals combine classical composition with modern color sensibilities, reflecting his belief in art as a unifying cultural force. He was also an accomplished watercolorist, producing intimate studies of flowers and landscapes characterized by delicacy and formal balance.

La Farge was deeply engaged with intellectual and artistic discourse. He wrote extensively on art, aesthetics, and travel, and maintained close relationships with leading figures such as Henry Adams and Augustus Saint-Gaudens. His writings articulate a vision of art grounded in historical knowledge, spiritual depth, and cross-cultural awareness, including a sustained interest in Japanese art and its influence on Western modernism.

Today, John La Farge is recognized as one of the most important American artists of the late 19th century. His work is held in major museum collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.