John McLaughlin (artist)
Encyclopedia
John Dwyer McLaughlin was an American abstract painter. Based primarily in California, he was a pioneer in minimalist
and hard-edge painting
.
. His father was a Massachusetts Superior Court judge and he had six siblings. His parents instilled in him an interest in art, most specifically Asian art
.
McLaughlin served in both World Wars. His service in the United States Navy
during World War I spanned from 1917 to 1921.
In 1928 he married Florence Emerson, a descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson
. In 1935 they moved to Japan, where McLaughlin studied the art and language. When they returned to Boston
in 1938, they opened The Tokaido, Inc., an art gallery which specialized in Japanese prints and other Asian items.
After studying Japanese
at the University of Hawaii
in Honolulu, he served the United States Marine Corps
in World War II as a translator. Later in the war, he worked in U. S. Army Intelligence
as a translator in Japan, Burma, and China. In 1945 he was awarded the Bronze Star for meritorious service.
He settled in Dana Point, California
in 1946 and began painting full-time.
A few of his earliest paintings were still life
s and landscapes
, but the remainder of his pieces were abstract
s. During this time period, he was one of just a few American artists creating abstracts. McLaughlin's work is characterized by a simplicity expressed as precise geometric forms, usually rectangles. His experiences in Asia were very important in developing his style. Zen
masters taught that spaces between objects (the "marvelous void") could be more important than the objects themselves in facilitating meditation. The work of Kazimir Malevich
and Piet Mondrian
also strongly influenced McLaughlin. He wrote: "With respect to my direct influences I must stress my interest in 15th and 16th century Japanese painters. I have found comfort in some aspects of thought expressed by , and I am indebted to Mondrian because his painting strongly indicated that the natural extension of Neo-Plasticism is the totally abstract."
From 1952 onward, he ceased using curves in his work. Paintings from his later period show increasing simplification of form and color palette.
He described his artistic philosophy: "My purpose is to achieve the totally abstract. I want to communicate only to the extent that the painting will serve to induce or intensify the viewer's natural desire for contemplation without benefit of a guiding principle. I must therefore free the viewer from the demands or special qualities imposed by the particular by omitting the image (object). This I manage by the use of neutral forms."
McLaughlin's first solo exhibition was in 1952 at the Felix Landau
Gallery in Los Angeles. His many other solo exhibition venues included the Pasadena Art Museum, Corcoran Gallery, La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, and Whitney Museum of American Art
. His work was also included in numerous group exhibitions, including the landmark "Four Abstract Classicists" exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
. This show, also featuring the work of Karl Benjamin
, Lorser Feitelson
, and Frederick Hammersley
, was organized by Jules Langsner who, along with Peter Selz, coined the term "hard-edge painting
" to describe the work of these four abstract artists. Langsner wrote: "Deliberately neutral in character, John McLaughlin's forms might be described as anonymous. Essentially color serves him as a means of defining and regulating a form's relative importance in the composition. Each painting represents the outcome of a process of refinement."
A touring exhibition "Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design and Culture at Midcentury" featured the abstract classicists. New York Times art critic Ken Johnson
wrote in his 2008 review of the show at the Addison Gallery of American Art
: "Mr. McLaughlin’s grid-based paintings exude a greater formal austerity [than Benjamin's]. They are composed of smooth, flat rectangles of black, white, off-white and gray with blocks of color strategically inserted here and there. Inspired by Asian art and Zen Buddhism, they have a monastic air about them, but they are suave and materially sensuous too."
Life
magazine published a special issue in 1962 on the state of California. It highlighted five renowned artists, including John McLaughlin. (The others were Stanton Macdonald-Wright, Robert Irwin
, Billy Al Bengston
, and Roger Kuntz.)
McLaughlin's work was very influential for many reductive California artists including Robert Irwin
, Larry Bell
, and Robert Ryman
.
McLaughlin died on March 22, 1976 in Dana Point at the age of 77.
Minimalism
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
and hard-edge painting
Hard-edge painting
Hard-edge painting is painting in which abrupt transitions are found between color areas. Color areas are often of one unvarying color. The Hard-edge painting style is related to Geometric abstraction, Op Art, Post-painterly Abstraction, and Color Field painting.-History of the term:The term was...
.
Life
John McLaughlin was born in Sharon, MassachusettsSharon, Massachusetts
Sharon is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 17,612 at the 2010 census. Sharon is part of Greater Boston, about 17 miles southwest of downtown Boston....
. His father was a Massachusetts Superior Court judge and he had six siblings. His parents instilled in him an interest in art, most specifically Asian art
Asian art
Asian art can refer to art amongst many cultures in Asia.-Various types of Asian art:*Afghan art*Azerbaijanian art*Balinese art*Bhutanese art*Buddhist art*Burmese contemporary art*Chinese art*Eastern art*Indian art*Iranian art*Islamic art...
.
McLaughlin served in both World Wars. His service in the United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
during World War I spanned from 1917 to 1921.
In 1928 he married Florence Emerson, a descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century...
. In 1935 they moved to Japan, where McLaughlin studied the art and language. When they returned to Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
in 1938, they opened The Tokaido, Inc., an art gallery which specialized in Japanese prints and other Asian items.
After studying Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
at the University of Hawaii
University of Hawaii
The University of Hawaii System, formally the University of Hawaii and popularly known as UH, is a public, co-educational college and university system that confers associate, bachelor, master, and doctoral degrees through three university campuses, seven community college campuses, an employment...
in Honolulu, he served the United States Marine Corps
United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...
in World War II as a translator. Later in the war, he worked in U. S. Army Intelligence
Military Intelligence Corps (United States Army)
In the United States Armed Forces, Military Intelligence refers specifically to the intelligence components of the United States Army...
as a translator in Japan, Burma, and China. In 1945 he was awarded the Bronze Star for meritorious service.
Painting career
McLaughlin had begun painting during the 1930s, relatively late in life. He was self-taught, without receiving formal artistic training. His fondness for Asian art and his travels in that part of the world influenced his artistic style.He settled in Dana Point, California
Dana Point, California
-Climate:Dana Point enjoys a mild climate where temperatures tend to average around the 60's. The warmest month of the year is August with an average temperature of 79 degrees Fahrenheit. The coldest month is December with an average minimum temperature of 44 degrees Fahrenheit.-2010:The 2010...
in 1946 and began painting full-time.
A few of his earliest paintings were still life
Still life
A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural or man-made...
s and landscapes
Landscape art
Landscape art is a term that covers the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, and especially art where the main subject is a wide view, with its elements arranged into a coherent composition. In other works landscape backgrounds for figures can still...
, but the remainder of his pieces were abstract
Abstract art
Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...
s. During this time period, he was one of just a few American artists creating abstracts. McLaughlin's work is characterized by a simplicity expressed as precise geometric forms, usually rectangles. His experiences in Asia were very important in developing his style. Zen
Zen
Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism founded by the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma. The word Zen is from the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word Chán , which in turn is derived from the Sanskrit word dhyāna, which can be approximately translated as "meditation" or "meditative state."Zen...
masters taught that spaces between objects (the "marvelous void") could be more important than the objects themselves in facilitating meditation. The work of Kazimir Malevich
Kazimir Malevich
Kazimir Severinovich Malevich was a Russian painter and art theoretician, born of ethnic Polish parents. He was a pioneer of geometric abstract art and the originator of the Avant-garde Suprematist movement.-Early life:...
and Piet Mondrian
Piet Mondrian
Pieter Cornelis "Piet" Mondriaan, after 1906 Mondrian , was a Dutch painter.He was an important contributor to the De Stijl art movement and group, which was founded by Theo van Doesburg. He evolved a non-representational form which he termed Neo-Plasticism...
also strongly influenced McLaughlin. He wrote: "With respect to my direct influences I must stress my interest in 15th and 16th century Japanese painters. I have found comfort in some aspects of thought expressed by , and I am indebted to Mondrian because his painting strongly indicated that the natural extension of Neo-Plasticism is the totally abstract."
From 1952 onward, he ceased using curves in his work. Paintings from his later period show increasing simplification of form and color palette.
He described his artistic philosophy: "My purpose is to achieve the totally abstract. I want to communicate only to the extent that the painting will serve to induce or intensify the viewer's natural desire for contemplation without benefit of a guiding principle. I must therefore free the viewer from the demands or special qualities imposed by the particular by omitting the image (object). This I manage by the use of neutral forms."
McLaughlin's first solo exhibition was in 1952 at the Felix Landau
Felix Landau (art)
Felix Henry Landau was an American art dealer, whose Los Angeles gallery was a showcase for modern and contemporary art in the 1960s....
Gallery in Los Angeles. His many other solo exhibition venues included the Pasadena Art Museum, Corcoran Gallery, La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, and Whitney Museum of American Art
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
. His work was also included in numerous group exhibitions, including the landmark "Four Abstract Classicists" exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is an art museum in Los Angeles, California. It is located on Wilshire Boulevard along Museum Row in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles, adjacent to the George C. Page Museum and La Brea Tar Pits....
. This show, also featuring the work of Karl Benjamin
Karl Benjamin
Karl Benjamin is an American painter of vibrant geometric abstractions who rose to fame in 1959 as one of four Los Angeles-based Abstract Classicists and subsequently produced a critically acclaimed body of work that explores a vast array of color relationships...
, Lorser Feitelson
Lorser Feitelson
Lorser Feitelson was born and raised in New York city but rose to prominence on the West Coast as one of the founding fathers of Southern California-based Hard Edge painting...
, and Frederick Hammersley
Frederick Hammersley
Frederick Hammersley was a critically acclaimed American abstract painter whose participation in the landmark 1959 Four Abstract Classicists exhibit secured his place in art history.-Early years:...
, was organized by Jules Langsner who, along with Peter Selz, coined the term "hard-edge painting
Hard-edge painting
Hard-edge painting is painting in which abrupt transitions are found between color areas. Color areas are often of one unvarying color. The Hard-edge painting style is related to Geometric abstraction, Op Art, Post-painterly Abstraction, and Color Field painting.-History of the term:The term was...
" to describe the work of these four abstract artists. Langsner wrote: "Deliberately neutral in character, John McLaughlin's forms might be described as anonymous. Essentially color serves him as a means of defining and regulating a form's relative importance in the composition. Each painting represents the outcome of a process of refinement."
A touring exhibition "Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design and Culture at Midcentury" featured the abstract classicists. New York Times art critic Ken Johnson
Ken Johnson (art critic)
Ken Johnson is an American art critic who lives in New York. Johnson is a writer for the arts pages of The New York Times, where he covers gallery and museum exhibits....
wrote in his 2008 review of the show at the Addison Gallery of American Art
Addison Gallery of American Art
The Addison Gallery of American Art, as a department of Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, is an academic museum dedicated to collecting American art...
: "Mr. McLaughlin’s grid-based paintings exude a greater formal austerity [than Benjamin's]. They are composed of smooth, flat rectangles of black, white, off-white and gray with blocks of color strategically inserted here and there. Inspired by Asian art and Zen Buddhism, they have a monastic air about them, but they are suave and materially sensuous too."
Life
Life (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....
magazine published a special issue in 1962 on the state of California. It highlighted five renowned artists, including John McLaughlin. (The others were Stanton Macdonald-Wright, Robert Irwin
Robert Irwin (artist)
Robert Irwin is an American Installation artist. He lives and works in San Diego, California.-Beginnings:Robert Irwin was born in 1928 in Long Beach, California to Robert Irwin and Goldie Anderberg Irwin...
, Billy Al Bengston
Billy Al Bengston
Billy Al Bengston is an American artist and sculptor who lives and works in Venice, California. He was educated at Los Angeles City College Los Angeles, CA , California College of Arts & Crafts Oakland, CA , and the Otis Art Institute, Los Angeles, CA .After seeing the work of Jasper Johns at the...
, and Roger Kuntz.)
McLaughlin's work was very influential for many reductive California artists including Robert Irwin
Robert Irwin (artist)
Robert Irwin is an American Installation artist. He lives and works in San Diego, California.-Beginnings:Robert Irwin was born in 1928 in Long Beach, California to Robert Irwin and Goldie Anderberg Irwin...
, Larry Bell
Larry Bell (artist)
Larry Bell is a contemporary American artist and sculptor. He lives and works in Taos, New Mexico, and maintains a studio in Venice, California. From 1957 to 1959 he studied at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles as a student of Robert Irwin, Richards Ruben, Robert Chuey, and Emerson Woelfer...
, and Robert Ryman
Robert Ryman
Robert Ryman is an American painter identified with the movements of monochrome painting, minimalism, and conceptual art. He is best known for abstract, white-on-white paintings. He lives and works in New York.-Early life and career:...
.
McLaughlin died on March 22, 1976 in Dana Point at the age of 77.
External links
Sites displaying images of McLaughlin's work:- Addison Gallery of American Art
- Bowdoin College Museum of Art
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Indianapolis Museum of Art
- Long Beach Museum of Art (with biography)
- Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
- San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
- Smithsonian Institution (with photos of the artist)
- Sullivan Goss gallery (with biography)