'Winter in the City' by James Carlin, Mid-Century Urban Landscape Featuring 1930s Scaffold Sky Sign, American Modern Realism

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Signed lower left, 'James Carlin' (Irish-American, 1906-2005) and painted circa 1950.

Born in Belfast, Ireland, James Carlin graduated from Belfast's … Read more Signed lower left, 'James Carlin' (Irish-American, 1906-2005) and painted circa 1950.

Born in Belfast, Ireland, James Carlin graduated from Belfast's Municipal College (1927), and began his career at the Campbell Stained Glass Studio where he specialized in stained-glass painting and design. His design and glass work can be found in a number of churches in Ireland as well as the Londonderry Guild Hall.

Journalist Michael Gabriele stated of Carlin's work that "stained glass represented the most enduring aesthetic influence in Carlin's work. In many of his paintings, his use of color, line and underlying patterns of dark and light echoed the look of stained glass."

In the 1930s, Carlin emigrated to the United States and settled in New Jersey. An educator, he was a faculty member at Queen's College in New York before joining the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Art as an instructor in 1946. His career there spanned 30 years and, in 1958, he became the head of the art department.

He exhibited widely and with success including at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (1940-1946), National Academy of Design (1940-1951), American Watercolor Society (1940, prize), Montclair Art Museum (1941, 1942, prizes), Denver Art Museum (1943), Allied Artists of America (1945, 1946 prize), New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Miami Beach Art Center. He was a member of the American Watercolor Society, Audubon Artists, Allied Artists of America, the Salmagundi Club and the National Academy of Design, from which he received the George A Zabriskie Award for Water Color.

Reference:
Who Was Who in American Art 1564-1975: 400 Years of Artists in America, Peter Hastings Falk, Sound View Press 1999, Vol. 1, page 569; "James Carlin Exhibition", Exhibition brochure of the Nutley Savings Band, Nutley, New Jersey; Exhibition brochure of Miami Arts Center; Exhibition brochure from Papermill Playhouse, February 6 to March 4, 1942; Michael C Gabriele, Obituary of the artist, Nutley Sun, January 13, 2005; et al. See less