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BiographyNo 14 , 1973John McLaughlin was an American abstract painter born in Sharon, MA in 1898. In 1935, McLaughlin and his wife Florence Emerson (descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson) moved to Japan where they lived for three years. Upon their return in 1938, McLaughlin established a business dealing Japanese prints. It was around this time that he decided to start painting, which was brought to a halt just a few years later with the start of the war. Fluent in Japanese, McLaughlin was recruited as a translator by the Army during WWII. After the war, McLaughlin settled in Dana Point, California, where he started painting full time in 1946. Entirely self-taught, the artist continued to paint, with considerable success in his later career, until his death in 1976. Solo museum exhibitions include John McLaughlin: Western Modernism, Eastern Thought, Laguna Art Museum and The Prints of John McLaughlin: Site of Contemplation, Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He was recently the subject of a major retrospective at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, John McLaughlin Paintings: Total Abstraction, November 13, 2016-April 16, 2017. Selected public collections include Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art, New York among others.
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WorksExhibitions
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A Little Touch of Grace
September 18 - November 8, 2024Van Doren Waxter is pleased to present “A Little Touch of Grace,” a group exhibition of works by Farid Haddad, John McLaughlin, Richard Pousette-Dart, Harvey Quaytman, Hedda Sterne, Anne Truitt,...Read more -
John McLaughlin | Harvey Quaytman
3rd Floor March 31 - May 6, 2023Read more -
John McLaughlin
Linocuts: 3rd Floor March 23 - May 1, 2021Van Doren Waxter is very pleased to announce John McLaughlin: Linocuts, a special presentation of rare, intimately scaled geometric prints by the late modernist to go on view at the...Read more -
John McLaughlin
Constructions March 28 - May 11, 2018Van Doren Waxter is pleased to announce John McLaughlin: Constructions, on view at the gallery’s 23 East 73rd location from March 28 through May 11, 2018. The exhibition focuses on...Read more -
John McLaughlin
Marvelous Void November 2, 2016 - January 7, 2017I want to communicate only to the extent that the painting will serve to induce or intensify the viewer’s natural desire for contemplation without the benefit of a guiding principle....Read more -
Shifting Planes
Held, Kelly, McLaughlin October 2 - December 20, 2013Van Doren Waxter is pleased to present Shifting Planes: Held, Kelly, McLaughlin, a three-person exhibition featuring paintings by Al Held and John McLaughlin and a painting and a wall relief...Read more -
John McLaughlin
Paintings 1947 - 1974 February 20 - April 19, 2013Van Doren Waxter is pleased to present its inaugural exhibition John McLaughlin: Paintings 1947 - 1974, a solo exhibition featuring paintings and works on paper spanning the career of the...Read more -
John McLaughlin
Hard Edge Classicist January 7 - February 13, 2010Catalogue available Greenberg Van Doren is pleased to present an exhibition of fourteen paintings by the late California artist, John McLaughlin (1898-1976). Though not seen in depth in New York...Read more
NewsPublicationsArt fairsPress-
Editors’ Picks: 14 Things to See in New York This Week
Artnet News, March 26, 2018 -
John McLaughlin
by Stephen Westfall, Art in America, June 1, 2017 -
John McLaughlin
By Jason Farago, The New Yorker , January 7, 2017 -
Tracing a Path from Cubism to Digital Art
by Jillian Steinhauer, Hyperallergic, April 2, 2013 -
John McLaughlin: Paintings 1947 - 1974
By Robert C. Morgan, The Brooklyn Rail, April 1, 2013 -
John McLaughlin
The Wall Street Journal, March 2, 2013 -
Pacific Standard Time: Open your eyes to John McLaughlin
Los Angeles Times, October 2, 2011 -
McLaughlin Rediscovered
N.F. KARLINS, Artnet, February 2, 2010 -
John McLaughlin
by HOLLAND COTTER, The New York Times, January 28, 2010
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