John Langley Howard was born in Montclair, NJ on Feb. 5, 1902. Howard was brought to California by his parents as an infant. After majoring in English and engineering at UC, he enrolled at the California College of Arts & Crafts (Oakland), and then continued at Art Students League in NYC under Kenneth Hayes Miller. Returning to California in 1926, he held his first exhibition at San Francisco's Modern Gallery. Shortly after his return, he and his wife bought a house in Monterey and spent many years there. Howard was active as an artist until a few years before his demise in San Francisco on Nov. 15, 1999. Originally inspired by the landscapes of Cézanne, his work evolved into Social Realism during the 1930s; however, in the early 1940s he returned to painting landscapes in a style of meticulous realism with symbolic overtones.

Member: Carmel AA; SFAA; Marin Society of Artists; Calif. Society of Mural Painters.

Exh: Club Beaux Arts (SF), 1928 (solo); Golden Gate International Exposition ,1939; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1939 (solo); Foundation of Western Art (LA), 1940; American Watercoloar Society, 1940s; Carnegie Inst., 1941 (solo); Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.), 1943; Art Institute of Chicago, 1945; California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 1946; Lawson Gallery (SF), 1975 (solo); Academy of Sciences, Golden Gate Park, 1983 (solo); De Young Museum, 1991.

Works held in public places: IBM (NY); Security Pacific Nat'l Bank Headquarters (LA); California Palace of the Legion Honor; Oakland Museum; Coit Tower (SF); Univ. of Utah.

Born in Montclair, New Jersey, John Howard moved as an infant with his parents to California. At the University of California at Berkeley, he majored in engineering and English and then enrolled at the Oakland College of Arts and Crafts. Later he continued his studies at the Art Students League in New York City.

In 1926, he held his first exhibit at San Francisco's Modern Gallery. He lived for many years in Monterey but later returned to San Francisco. A regionalist, most of his work focuses on people in the Monterey area engaged in labor and industrial pursuits.

Source:
Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940"
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Note submitted by Daniel Bernstien, son-in law of the artist, May 2004

He died at home in San Francisco on November 15, 1999. Apart from living in Monterey and San Francisco, he also lived in Mill Valley and Bolinas,California. He had lived in New York City and Nyack, N.Y. in the 1950s and early 60s, during which he did many illustrations for Scientific American. He and his second wife, Blanche Phillips lived in London, England in the late sixties for a couple of years.

He was one of the muralists who worked in a federally funded art project for the Coit Tower, a well known landmark in San Francisco in 1934. In his latter years he painted mostly in water colors of highly detailed still life subjects.