John Fabian Carlson (1875–1945) was a 20th-century Swedish-American landscape painter, teacher and author. He was known for his meditative winter scenes rendered in the tonalist tradition.John F. Carlson (Active 1906–1945) Quest Royal Fine Art. Retrieved on 25 April 2026. He was co-founder of the Woodstock School of Landscape Painting and founder of the John Fabian Carlson School of Landscape Painting in Woodstock, NY. In 1928 he wrote Elementary Principles of Landscape Painting which was later reissued as Carlson's Guide to Landscape Painting.
Early life and education Carlson was born on May 5, 1875, in Västervik, Småland, Sweden, the son of Carl Vilhelm Theodor Carlsson and Clara Mathilda Larsdotter Carlsson. In 1889 he moved to Buffalo, NY with his family where he lived until 1901. His formal training began at the Albright School of Art. He studied painting at the Art Students League of Buffalo under Lucius Wolcott Hitchcock, where he won many prizes and a scholarship to the Art Students League of New York. At the Art Students League of New York he studied under Birge Harrison and Frank Vincent DuMond. In 1904, Carlson received a scholarship to study landscape painting at Byrdcliffe Colony with Birge Harrison.
Career In 1906 Carlson joined Harrison as his assistant in Woodstock.
In April 1911 he was elected associate member of the National Academy of Design, becoming a full member in 1925. In June 1911 he began his seven-year tenure as director of the Art Students League Summer School program in landscape at Woodstock, NY, succeeding Birge Harrison.
He headed the Broadmoor School of Art in Colorado Springs from 1921 to 1922.
In 1923 he returned to Woodstock, NY and founded the John F. Carlson School of Landscape Painting which he led until 1938. He continued to teach at the School of Landscape Painting until his death in 1945.
Selected works
Awards 1912 Salmagundi Club, Isidor & Vezin prizes 1918 National Academy of Design Carnegie Prize. 1923 Salmagundi Club, Shaw water-color prize 1923 Henry Ward Ranger fund purchase prize
Collections Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Ohio Baltimore Museum and of Fine Arts, Maryland Birger Sandzen Memorial Gallery, Kansas The Butler Art Institute, Ohio Brigham Young University Museum of Art, Utah Brooks Memorial Gallery, Tennessee Carnegie Institute, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. Dallas Museum of Art, Texas Dallas Public Library, Texas Fort Worth Art Association, Texas Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, Georgia Lincoln Art Association, Nebraska Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Michele and Donald D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts, Massachusetts National Academy of Design, New York Oberlin College Collection, Ohio Randolph-Macon College, Virginia Reading Public Museum, Pennsylvania Sheldon Museum of Art, Nebraska Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC The Parthenon, Tennessee The Phillips Collection, Washington DC The San Diego Museum of Art, California The Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio Virginia Institute of Fine Arts, Virginia Washington County Museum of Fine Arts, Maryland Woodstock Artists Association Museum, New York
Published writings 1928 Elementary Principles of Landscape Painting, National Publishing Society, Mountain Lake Park, Maryland 1953 Carlson's Guide to Landscape Painting, Sterling Publishing, NY, reprinted multiple times.
Personal life He married fellow artist Margaret Goddard on April 19, 1913, in Plainfield, NJ. They had three sons. He died at age 69 on March 20, 1945. He passed away in a Manhattan, New York Hospital following a six-week illness, and is buried in Woodstock Artist Cemetery, Woodstock, Ulster County, NY.
References