American, 1892 - 1972
John Folinsbee completed his secondary school education at the Gunnery School in Washington, Connecticut, in 1911 and promptly turned to art study. He worked with Jonas Lie in Plainfield, New Jersey, and in 1912 attended the Art Students League summer school in Woodstock, New York, where he studied under John F. Carlson and Birge Harrison. During the winter of 1912-13 he worked at the Art Students League in New York under Frank Vincent DuMond, and then he returned to Woodstock for the summer 1913 session. He married in 1914 and settled in New Hope, Pennsylvania, in 1916. The Pennsylvania Impressionist painters were centered in New Hope; prominent among them were Daniel Garber, William Lathrop, Harry Leith-Ross, Edward Redfield, Florence and Henry B. Snell, and Robert Spencer. Folinsbee initially worked in an Impressionist mode, recording the impact of industrialism on the rural landscape; later his style developed toward Expressionism. He received the first of many significant awards when the Academy awarded him the Julius Hallgarten Prize in the annual exhibition of 1916. The following year Ferargil Galleries in New York mounted the first of numerous one-man shows of his work it would present.
Starting in the 1930s, Folinsbee spent his summers in Wiscasset, Maine, where he kept a lobster boat outfitted for use as a floating studio. His Maine paintings focused on the labor of commercial fishing. Like many artists of the period, Folinsbee participated in the public-mural projects of the late 1930s and early 1940s, executing Freeland for the Freeland, Pennsylvania, post office in 1938, and View of Burgettstown for the Burgettstown, Pennsylvania, post office in 1942. In the latter project he was assisted by Peter Cook, who had become his son-in-law in 1939.
Folinsbee was a consistent contributor to Academy exhibitions and a recipient of many of its awards. Besides winning the Hallgarten Prize in 1916, he also received it in 1917 and 1923. In addition, he was awarded the Carnegie Prize and the J. Francis Murphy Memorial Prize in 1921; the Murphy Prize again in 1926; the Benjamin Altman Prize in 1936, 1941, and 1950; the Anonymous Prize in 1949; and the Edwin Palmer Memorial Prize in 1952.
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Starting in the 1930s, Folinsbee spent his summers in Wiscasset, Maine, where he kept a lobster boat outfitted for use as a floating studio. His Maine paintings focused on the labor of commercial fishing. Like many artists of the period, Folinsbee participated in the public-mural projects of the late 1930s and early 1940s, executing Freeland for the Freeland, Pennsylvania, post office in 1938, and View of Burgettstown for the Burgettstown, Pennsylvania, post office in 1942. In the latter project he was assisted by Peter Cook, who had become his son-in-law in 1939.
Folinsbee was a consistent contributor to Academy exhibitions and a recipient of many of its awards. Besides winning the Hallgarten Prize in 1916, he also received it in 1917 and 1923. In addition, he was awarded the Carnegie Prize and the J. Francis Murphy Memorial Prize in 1921; the Murphy Prize again in 1926; the Benjamin Altman Prize in 1936, 1941, and 1950; the Anonymous Prize in 1949; and the Edwin Palmer Memorial Prize in 1952.
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