04/03/2026
Born on this day in 1835 in New York City, John La Farge was a painter, muralist, stained-glass designer, illustrator, and author. Beginning to draw at an early age, he briefly studied law before traveling to Europe in 1856 to study art. There, he worked briefly under the painter Thomas Couture in Paris and engaged with the Pre-Raphaelites in London. In 1859, he returned to the United States and initially settled in Newport, Rhode Island, where he studied with William Morris Hunt.
La Farge was one of the first American artists to borrow from the French Impressionists and from Japanese prints, which he began collecting in the late 1850s. Initially focused on landscapes and figurative works, he took up mural painting in 1876 after receiving a commission to decorate the interior of Boston’s Trinity Church.
Around this time, he also began working in stained glass, and he is largely credited with reinventing the medium and reinvigorating the craft in the United States. He developed a technique for creating opalescent glass that brought him numerous commissions from churches and private patrons and ignited a rivalry with Louis Comfort Tiffany. He went on to produce stained glass windows for public buildings and private homes and, together with his murals and paintings, is celebrated as a key figure of the American Arts and Crafts movement.
🎨: John La Farge (1835 - 1910), Fountain in Our Garden at Nikko, 1886, oil on wood panel. collections.brandywine.org