American Monotypes from the Baker/Pisano Collection | Page 48

John Francis Murphy (American, 1853–1921)
Landscape, 1897

Monotype, 5 3/8 x 9 1/8 in.
Collection of The Heckscher Museum, Huntington, New York. Gift of
the Baker/Pisano Collection, 2001.9.176

Born in Oswego, New York, John Francis Murphy was a noted
landscapist who worked in oil, watercolor, and in this instance,
monotype. Although it is generally reported that Murphy was
self-taught, he did take classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago before moving to New York in 1875. A year
later, Murphy exhibited at the National Academy of Design. In
1878 he joined the Salmagundi Club, a noted artist organization and the scene of monotype making in the late-nineteenth
century. This monotype, which displays a wonderful working of
the medium suggesting that he produced others, was purportedly done during a dinner in 1897 at the Salmagundi Club.
Murphy gained a level of some celebrity during his lifetime;
however, interest in his work has died down, likely because
of his limited subject matter and a general lack of interest in
American Barbizon School style of painting.
NOTES:
Burke, American Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 152–155.
Murphy, J. Francis Murphy, 8–11.

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