Walter Farndon

Summer Day, Monhegan Harbor

Living and working in an era of passionate and often controversial changes in the art world, Walter Farndon managed to retain the essential pleasure of creation. Called “The Painter’s Painter” in New York circles, he captured some of America’s most dramatic scenery, particularly the Eastern seaboard - from New Jersey to Nova Scotia - in a bold, intimate style. Walter Farndon, a native of Coventry, England, immigrated to the United States with his family in 1884, shortly after his enrollment in the Coventry Art School at the age of ten. Following the move to New York, Farndon continued to study and work in the arts and, drawing on the tradition of his family of stained glass and carpet designers, joined a carpet-making firm in the early 1890s to design and paint floral motifs. Farndon later attended the National Academy of Design, where he worked under Edgar M. Ward, and the Mechanics' Institute, where he earned a degree in architectural drafting in 1912. Although primarily a painter of the New York and New Jersey area, Farndon traveled to New England during the latter half of his career and regularly painted on Monhegan Island. Today, his works are included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum and the National Academy of Design. He was elected as a full National Academician in 1937. He also belonged to the New York Water Color Club, the American Watercolor Society, the Allied Artists of America, the American Artists’ Professional League, the Guild of American Painters, the National Arts Club, the New York Society of Painters, the Grand Central Art Galleries and the Salmagundi Club, among others. He exhibited his work and won numerous prizes throughout New York, and at the Pennsylvania Academy, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Corcoran Gallery and the Boston Art Club.