Inducted in 2013
Artist
Pioneer in Stained Glass Technique

Induction Video

Born in New York on March 31, 1835, John Frederick LaFarge Jr. was the eldest son of Jean-Frédéric de LaFarge Sr., a French naval officer, and his wife, Louisa Josephine Binsse. Jean-Frederic and Louisa would have six other children besides: Louisa, Henry, Alfonse, Helen, Emily and Frances. From an early age, the LaFarge children spoke English and French fluently.

John’s upbringing was cosmopolitan, and intellectually and culturally privileged. As a small boy, he attended Columbia Grammar School and received his first art lessons from his grandfather, Louis François de Paul Binsee de Saint-Victor, a well-known painter of miniatures. When John was a bit older, he would take watercolor lessons.

In the late 1840s, John LaFarge, together with his brother Henry, arrived in Fordham, New York to begin their education at the Second Division of St. John’s College, the school today known as Fordham Prep. Cousins Lewis (or Louis) and Edward Binsee were also Second Divisioners at the time. Among the LaFarges’ teachers would have been fellow Hall of Honor inductee Patrick Dealy, SJ, who in those days, as a scholastic, briefly taught Greek and Latin on the Prep level.  And as for art instruction, the art teacher at the school was none other than William Rodrigue, the architect of the University Church who would also work on the design of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. In fact, Rodrigue’s son, Andrew James Rodrigue, was John and Henry’s classmate.

There are stories suggesting that either John’s or Henry’s Fordham career were interrupted and that one or both of them temporarily withdrew along the way. Nonetheless, both brothers were back at Rose Hill and successfully completed the equivalent of their high school years in 1852, making them both members of the Prep’s seventh graduating class. A contemporary wrote an admiring essay about LaFarge and included this bit:

As an underclassman in the Romanist College at Fordham, John LaFarge read with a Jesuit tutor who was a bibliophile, and the lad began and finished his Homer in the editio princeps.

John and Henry continued their education at Mount St. Mary’s in Maryland, and there they were joined by their younger brother, Ambrose. At Mount St. Mary’s, John earned a bachelor’s and a master’s, the latter degree probably in law.

Despite his apparent interest in art, John seemed to be on track to become a lawyer, even working for a New York law firm for a time. Nonetheless, even during his law career, he would feel art’s pull on him, and at some point he began to study, probably in Brooklyn, with Régis Francois Gignoux, an esteemed French artist who had been in the United States since 1840 and who was a member of the National Academy of Design and the first president of the Brooklyn Art Academy. It was not until 1856, when LaFarge visited Germany and France, that the course of his life changed, and he began to pursue painting single-mindedly. At first he studied with Thomas Couture, whose students also included Édouard Manet, but he soon set off on his own, training himself by copying the works of Old Masters.

LaFarge returned to the United States after several years and married Margaret Mason Perry in 1860 in Newport, Rhode Island. The he couple settled at 24 Kay Street. Margaret, who would be described as “a woman of much intellectual attainment” was the granddaughter of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry on her father’s side and the great-great-granddaughter of Benjamin Franklin on her mother’s side. During the early years of their marriage, John studied with William Morris Hunt, the most eminent painter in New England at that time. While painting landscapes and still lifes, he also worked as a book illustrator and lectured periodically at Harvard College.

His breakthrough came in 1876. Collaborating with H.H. Richardson and the Irish-born artist Augustus Saint-Gaudens, he started a decorative project on the interior of Trinity Church in Copley Square, Boston. The trio transformed the interior of the massive church with brilliant painting of the architectural elements. But the capstone of the project was the installation of John’s innovative stained glass windows. These were the first to contain opalescent glass, which is easily recognized by its translucent and milky appearance caused by the inclusion of opaque particles. Different colors can be incorporated and blended, almost like water colors or oil paints. John LaFarge did not invent opalescent glass  — it had been used for centuries to make jars and other containers — but he was the first to see its artistic potential in stained glass windows.

LaFarge created his own glass, sculpting its surface while it was still hot and creating a collage effect. The result was three-dimensional, nuanced color and realistic shading created by the skillful layering, or plating, of up to eight glass sheets. It was a marked departure from conventional stained glass. The first window John completed at Trinity in 1883 was a three-panel clerestory window, Christ Preaching. These were followed by The New Jerusalem, The Resurrection and The Presentation of the Virgin. According to art historians, who have called these windows "radical, extraordinary and brilliant," The New Jerusalem window contains a sampling of every type of glass he would ever use, including jewels and confetti glass.

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so Louis Comfort Tiffany, who considered LaFarge a rival, was surely trying to flatter John when he incorporated these techniques for his own stained glass work. While John worked for several years to perfect his techniques, he did not patent them until several years later, in 1879. By then, Tiffany was using them liberally in his own work.

After the Trinity Church projects, John LaFarge had his pick of decorative projects, including numerous church windows. His windows were installed at the Church of St. Joseph of Arimathea, Greenburgh, New York; St. Paul’s Chapel at Columbia University; First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia; Trinity Episcopal Church in Buffalo; All Saints Episcopal In Briarcliff Manor, New York; Christ Church, Lincoln, Rhode Island; the Cathedral of All Saints, Albany, and Mount Vernon Church, Boston, windows since moved to the Worcester Art Museum.

Our Lady of Mercy Chapel at Salve Regina University, Newport, Rhode Island contains thirteen of LaFarge’s windows. Restoration work in the early 21st century would reveal that these windows include actual emeralds. His windows also grace the Biltmore estate in Asheville, North Carolina, the Union League Club in Manhattan, and Supreme Court Chambers at the Minnesota State Capitol. His stained-glass clients included Cornelius Vanderbilt II, William Whitney, Henry Clay Frick and Henry Villard.

Not one to rest on his laurels, John LaFarge continued to experiment with unusual media and techniques in sculpture, drawing, watercolor, other paints, wood engraving, interior decorative elements, book illustrations, murals and even photography. His use of color was a common denominator in these endeavors. He became one of American’s most esteemed artists, and was a leader of the American Arts and Crafts movement. He was particularly noted for his drawings and landscapes. His studio was located at 51 West 10th Street in Greenwich Village.

In 1886, LaFarge traveled to Asia, accompanied by his friend, historian Henry Adams. He did a series of locally inspired, exotic watercolors several years before Paul Gauguin created his famous images of Tahitians. In 1890 and 1891, he traveled to San Francisco, Hawaii, Samoa, Tahiti, Fiji, Paris  and Brittany. He wrote extensively, producing several works of art history and art criticism, numerous essays and travelogues. He gained a reputation as a trailblazer in the study of Japanese art. An Artist’s Letters from Japan is a a collection of letters, drawings and photos from his trip to that country. He was a fine writer, and the opening paragraphs reveal the world through the eyes of a gifted artist:

We were in the great bay when I came up on deck in the early morning. The sea was smooth like the brilliant blank paper of the prints; a vast surface of water reflecting the light of the sky as if it were thicker air. Far-off streaks of blue light, like finest washes of the brush, determined distances. Beyond, in a white haze, the square white sails spotted the white horizon and floated above it.

One of his most unusual characteristics was the way he did not fit in as a member of any artistic school or movement. While the popularity of the Hudson River School of American painting was cresting, LaFarge’s interest had turned back to Rubens, Titian and Rembrandt. Shortly after LaFarge's death, a New York Times critic wrote:

John LaFarge was prolific, working until he died, producing approximate 400 stained glass windows, 1200 watercolors, 250 oil paintings, 12 mural projects, and approximately 4000 drawings. His paintings, drawings, sculptures, and other works are on exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Corcoran Gallery, Art Institute of Chicago, Harvard Art Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Worcester Art Museum, and Philadelphia Museum of Art, and numerous other locations worldwide.

His awards included the Cross of the Legion of Honor from the French government and an honorary degree from Yale University. He was one of the first seven artists elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters. A true intellectual, he was fluent in several languages and was a close friend of Winslow Homer, Henry James, as well as Henry Adams.

John and Margaret raised several children. Christopher, Emily, J. L. Bencel, Maragret, Oliver, Frances and John III. Two other children, Mary Aimee and Joseph would die in infancy. Christopher and Oliver became architects. John III would became a Jesuit priest. He was noted for his battles against racism in America in the early part of the 20th century and participated in the Civil Rights March on Washington in 1963.

John Frederick LaFarge Jr.died in Rhode Island on November 14, 1910. He is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

We are quite sure that LaFarge is the only member of the Fordham Prep Hall of Honor who, though he lived his life as a devout Roman Catholic, is honored by the Episcopal Church in the United States with a feast day on its liturgical calendar.  In honor of his work which graces so many Episcopal churches, every December 16th, John LaFarge is remembered and celebrated.

For I am forced to believe that there are laws for our eyes as well as for our ears, and that when, if ever, these shall have been deciphered, as has been the good fortune with music, then shall we find that all best artists have carefully preserved their instinctive obedience to these, and have all cared together for this before all.

— John LaFarge