John McLaughlin was born in Sharon, Massachusetts in 1898. He was a part-time painter even while he worked as a dealer in Japanese prints and as a translator during World War II in Japan, China and Burma. He lived in Japan in the 1930s and served as a Marine Corps language officer. He and his wife lived in Dana Point, California where he, a self-taught artist, started his painting career at the age of forty-eight.
McLaughlin’s experience in the Far East and his growing knowledge of European abstract art led him to a non-objective, quiet form of art. He is known primarily for his hard-edged, geometric style of painting. He concentrated on color and form to create a neutral image devoid of subject. His paintings are understated and self-sufficient in that they do not have a relationship to one another, they exist entirely alone.
McLaughlin died in Dana Point, California in 1976.
Sources include:
Art in America, September 1997
AskART website
Compiled and written by Jean Ershler Schatz, artist and researcher of Laguna Woods, California.
Biography from the Archives of AskART.