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The intricate network of trellis, railing and awning are woven into an ordered composition.

Strokes of brilliant color are applied with a sensitivity to light and shade acquired from regular outdoor painting.

Sharman's current obscurity is hard to understand considering this beautiful scene.

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At the End of the Porch, 1918

oil on canvas

26 ½ x 40 ½ in.

James E. Roberts Fund

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Sharman’s biography reads like the ideal formula for establishing the American artist of repute: training under Frank Benson and Edmund Tarbell at Boston’s Museum School, a steady exhibition schedule, and favorable reviews of his mature work.  A 1922 article discussing an exhibition of Sharman’s paintings states, “Not in a long time has such a stimulating one-man show been seen in Boston as the present exhibition of John Sharman.”  Another article in the Boston Transcript praised At the End of the Porch as “a beautiful, luminous and joyous picture of a place where one would like to be. It represents a glassed-in porch, in the summer, and a lady sitting at her work; through the windows may be seen masses of shrubbery and white blossoms. An admirable canvas, it has the quality of reserve, but that does not prevent it from conveying with singular aptitude a most artistic impression of a lovely scene.” Even though numerous articles of praise were written about Sharman, not a word about this artist or his work appears in scholarly books on American painting, even those that specialize in artists of an Impressionist orientation.

In At the End of the Porch Sharman used the intricate network of trellis, railing and awning to define space and construct a well-ordered composition. Upon his framework he lavished broad strokes of brilliant color, applied with sensitivity to light and shade that Sharman acquired from regular painting in the outdoors. The result is a portrait of a summer sun that can burn the striped awning with salmon-tinted hues, cast deep shadows on the silent porch, and bleach vines into a wave of white blossoms.

Reference

The IMA library’s vertical files contain a folder on Sharman that includes many of the articles written about him during his lifetime.  Unfortunately, no published printed texts discuss the artist or his work.