Born near Wichita, Aug. 14, 1892; died Albany, NY, Nov. 7, 1959. Painter, specialized in portraits, landscapes. Teacher. Born on a train passing through Kansas, Carroll grew up near San Francisco. He studied at the Mark Hopkins Art Academy in San Francisco, CA and in Cincinnati, OH under Frank Duveneck. Worked as a sketch artist for an Oakland, CA newspaper in 1913. Settled in Woodstock, NY in 1920 producing popular paintings of beautiful women in romantic poses. Taught at the Art Students League of New York, 1926-7, 1944-51 and at the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts, 1930-44. Designed stained-glass windows for Tiffany & Co.

John Carroll was a painter famous for his portraits of dreamy, diaphanous women. He also painted landscapes but his portraits became his signature pieces. He painted his subjects in an idealistic way using sweeping strokes and a full brush.

Carroll was born on a train while his family was traveling through Wichita, Kansas in 1892. His father was originally from West Virginia but decided to move the family to California in 1892. Carroll grew-up in San Francisco and spent most of his summers on a nearby ranch. He developed an interest in art at an early age and after studying in public school attended the Mark Hopkins Art Academy in San Francisco, California. He continued his studies at the Mark Hopkins Art Academy for three years before becoming an engineering student at the University of California Berkeley for two years (1913-1915). In 1915 he studied art in Cincinnati, Ohio, where an early influence was Frank Duveneck, with whom he studied.

After a brief involvement with the U.S. Navy in World War I, Carroll moved to Macon, Georgia where he continued to paint. He eventually resettled in New York and was a member of the Woodstock art colony before 1922. While living in New York Carroll designed stained-glass windows for Tiffany &Co. in New York City and also made picture frames for his artist friends.

He received his first critical acclaim when he won an award for his art at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Arts, Philadelphia. Carroll went on to teach at the Art Students League in New York and won an award for his art at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Arts, Philadelphia. He became an instructor at the Art Students League in New York in 1926 and traveled to Europe the following year on a Guggenheim Fellowship.

In 1930 he became head of the painting department at the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts. During this period Carroll developed a flair for a painting portraits, exaggerating the delicate qualities of his female subjects, which gave the women an otherworldly appearance. He returned to the Art Students League in New York in 1944 and continued to teach there and exhibit his art in New York. He maintained a studio in New York City but also spent great deal of time on his three hundred acre ranch in East Chatham, New York.

Carroll died in Albany, New York in 1959.

Born in Wichita, KS on Aug. 14, 1892, John Wesley Carroll grew up in San Francisco and spent summers on a nearby ranch where he worked as a cowboy. He studied art at the Mark Hopkins Institute for three years and UC Berkeley for two years. In 1913 he was a sketch artist for the Oakland Tribune.

He then studied art in Europe with Frank Duveneck. His later years were spent on a cattle ranch near East Chatham, NY.

Carroll died in Albany, NY on Nov. 7, 1959.

Memberships:
National Academy of Design (1950)

Exhibitions:
San Francisco Art Association,1916
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 1922 (purchase prize), 1924
Painters & Sculptors of Los Angeles, 1926-27
Art Institute of Chicago, 1927
California Printmaker's Society, 1929 (award)
Detroit Institute of Arts, 1935

Museums:
Whitney Museum
Detroit Institute of Arts
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Newark Museum
Brooklyn Museum
Toledo Museum
Herron Museum
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts