John Van Minian

John Van Minian (active 1791-1835) was an American fraktur artist.

Little suggestion about Van Minian is known, and he remains an rarefied figure despite continued efforts to manufacture a biography for him. He was initially identified by his signature on a birth collection in the deposit of the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum, which has aided in the identification of a body of birth, baptismal, marriage, and relations records and decorated religious texts. Examples of his art are known from Berks and Montgomery Counties, Pennsylvania, and Baltimore County, Maryland; a marriage and family LP for a couple in Dorset, Vermont, dated 1826, is as a consequence his. The bride listed on the Vermont fraktur, Sidanna Shannon, was actually Sidney Shannon of Northampton, PA and was the daughter of Mary Ammerman, of German or Dutch heritage, which may run by the connection. The latest work approved to him, of on twenty in total, dates to 1835. Stylistically, Van Minian not speaking his compositions into carefully ruled sections in which he depicted figures in profile. Men are often seen looking through spyglasses. Other elements of his pictures insert stylized floral designs, symbolic, and patriotic elements, such as eagles. Texts are in English or German, often written in an ornate Gothic calligraphy but sometimes in cursive. The drawing is precise, as is the application of watercolor.

A associates register by Van Minian sold at auction in 2011 for $36,250. One of his religious pieces is in the deposit of the American Folk Art Museum.