John F. Francis

John F. Francis (August 13, 1808 – November 15, 1886) was an American painter, primarily of yet lifes.

Francis was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Predominantly self-taught as an artist, he worked until 1845 as a portrait painter in central and eastern Pennsylvania. Francis's portraits reveal his early immersion with minute detail. In 1845 Francis began exhibiting his works at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Philadelphia Art Union; both museums promoted American artists by awarding paintings to subscribers using lottery-like drawings. It was in this get older that he began to concentrate upon still lifes, which had been usual as a popular genre in Philadelphia by Raphaelle Peale and supplementary painters.

His first known still life is passй 1850, and by 1854 he had ceased to paint whatever else. Francis became known as a leading painter of luncheon and dessert still lifes, developing an intricate vocabulary of forms required by his specialized subject. William H. Gerdts writes, "Of whatever the mid-century still-life specialists, Francis was the most painterly. There is often a openness and a brio to his paint application that successfully savings account his certain delineation of form and his start of texture."

Nearly whatever of his paintings depict fruits and desserts. He painted many replicas of his works, with his style displaying little change over the course of his career. According to art historian Alfred Frankenstein, "his blond, high-keyed palette always provides one of the most distinctive accents in a general exhibition of American nevertheless life". Few of his paintings can be outdated after 1872, and none after 1880. He was for the most ration forgotten by the become old of his death in Jeffersonville, West Norriton, in 1886.

In 2013 a pair of his nevertheless lifes was appraised at $100,000.

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