John McLaughlin is known primarily for his hard-edged, geometric style of painting. McLaughlin was born in Sharon, Massachusetts in 1898. He was a part-time painter even while he worked as a dealer in Japanese prints and also as a translator during World War II in Japan, China, and Burma.

He and his wife lived in Dana Point, California where McLaughlin, a self-taught artist, started his painting career at the age of forty-eight. His experience in the Far East and his growing knowledge of European abstract art led him to a non-objective, quiet form of art. He concentrated on color and form to create a neutral image devoid of subject. His paintings are understated and self sufficient in that they do not have a relationship to one another, they exist entirely alone. His work is not created for the purpose of self-expression; but rather is designed to evoke silent reflection within the viewer.

His first solo exhibition was in 1952 at the Landau Gallery in Los Angeles and subsequent one-man shows followed at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. (1968), and the Pasadena Art Institute, California (1956, 1963). He participated in group exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1962), and the Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art, California (1974).

He died in Dana Point in 1976.

John McLaughlin was born in Sharon, Massachusetts in 1898. He was a part-time painter even while he worked as a dealer in Japanese prints and as a translator during World War II in Japan, China and Burma. He lived in Japan in the 1930s and served as a Marine Corps language officer. He and his wife lived in Dana Point, California where he, a self-taught artist, started his painting career at the age of forty-eight.

McLaughlin's experience in the Far East and his growing knowledge of European abstract art led him to a non-objective, quiet form of art. He is known primarily for his hard-edged, geometric style of painting. He concentrated on color and form to create a neutral image devoid of subject. His paintings are understated and self-sufficient in that they do not have a relationship to one another, they exist entirely alone.

McLaughlin died in Dana Point, California in 1976.

Written and submitted by Jean Ershler Schatz, artist and researcher from Laguna Woods, California.

Sources include:
From the internet, AskART.com
Art in America, September 1997

The self-taught, hard-edge painting pioneer John McLaughlin is considered one of the most significant and compelling postwar artists of his time. Born in Sharon, Massachusetts in 1898, McLaughlin served in the Navy during World War I and married Florence Emerson (the grandniece of Ralph Waldo Emerson) in 1928. The couple moved to Japan in 1935 where McLaughlin studied Japanese language and art and upon their return to Boston, opened The Tokaido, Inc., an art gallery specializing in Asian objects and Japanese prints. The outbreak of World War II brought McLaughlin back to Japan once again where he worked as a translator until his service ended in 1946 and the artist settled in Dana Point, California to begin painting fulltime. Inspired by the work of Kazimir Malevich and Piet Mondrian, McClaughlin drew upon his time overseas to create precise, geometric compositions devoid of representation. Citing 16th-century Japanese painters and Zen Buddhism, McLaughlin sought to provoke introspection in his work and create a meditative state for contemplation. In 1952, the artist stopped using curves altogether, and precise, rectilinear forms dominated his paintings. Also in 1952, John McLaughlin had his first solo exhibition at the Felix Landau Gallery in Los Angeles and later showed with André Emmerich in New York and Zurich. In 1959, his work was included in the seminal exhibition Four Abstract Classicists at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art where the term “hard-edge” painting was coined. McLaughlin died in 1976, and in 2016, he was the subject of a long-overdue retrospective at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art solidifying him as one of the most important American painters of the 20th century. Today, his work is held in many prominent collections including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the Albright-Knox Gallery in Buffalo.

“American, born Sharon, Massachusetts, May 21, 1898, died South Laguna, March 3, 1976. Self taught, achieved recognition as a classic hard edge painter. Extensive bibliography as early as 1949 by Jules Langsner. Numerous one-man exhibitions.

See ‘California in Los Angeles,’ Art News, vol. 48, no. 6, October 1949, page 48. Life member with LBMA.” (from LBAA cat. 1978.) Brief information in PSCA, No. 8.