John Francis Murphy

Early Autumn, 1917

oil on canvas

14 ½ x 19 ¼

The Ballard Family Memorial Fund

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John Francis Murphy was born in Oswego, New York.  When he was fifteen, he moved with his family to Chicago, where he painted billboards and theater backdrops.  Several years later he went to New York and found employment as an illustrator.  Murphy began sketching in the Adirondacks and then opened a studio in the Tenth Street Studio Building in New York City.  A self-taught artist, Murphy painted the coastal flatlands of New York, New Jersey and New England.  He took a six-month trip to France where he came under the influence of the French Barbizon painters. This experience led Murphy to develop a Tonalist style which uses soft, misty effects and tonal harmonies to express mood. 

Murphy’s Tonalist style is reflected in the warm dusky hues of Early Autumn, probably a view of upstate New York farmland.  His debt to Barbizon master Camille Corot is evident in the confetti-like foliage of the tree and even in the prevailing mood of wistfulness.  Murphy’s exacting method, in which he often worked on a painting over a period of years, created the complex surface of interwoven brushwork.

Reference

William H. Gerdts, et. al.  Tonalism: An American Experience, New York: Grand Central Art Galleries, 1982. ASIN: B000OYSE4G