John Lonergan (artist)


John Lonergan was an American artist, educator, and writer. He was born in Troy, NY. Sources variously list the year of his birth as 1895, 1896,1897. Lonergan died in New York City in 1969. His art often depicted the sea and the men who worked it, done in various mediums. These include gouache, drawing in charcoal and ink, lithography and screen printing. Lonergan studied art in Paris at Ecole des Beaux-Arts. and in New York City at the Art Students League. During his career he taught at Friends Seminary, Columbia Grammar School, and Greenwich House, all in New York City. In 1939 he published a handbook on gouache painting, Materials and Techniques of Gouache Painting.
From 1939 to 1942 Lonergan was a supervisor of the easel division of the Federal Arts Project in New York. As part of the larger Works Progress Administration, The FAP funded a wide range of visual
and plastic arts; the easel division was specifically assigned to paintings. It paid artists a weekly wage of about $25 dollars
to produce pieces which were then displayed in public institutions. These institutions included schools, community centers, museums, hospitals, government offices, libraries, post offices, and prisons. Nationwide, over 85,000 paintings were created and distributed.
Like many artists in the 1930s, Lonergan was active on the political Left. He exhibited with the International Workers Order and was a founder of the American Artists Congress in 1937. The Congress avowed: "We artists must act. Individually we are powerless. Through collective action we can defend our interests. We must ally ourselves with all groups engaged in the common struggle against war and fascism." Along with Lonergan, notable artists such as Alexander Calder, Stuart Davis, and Isami Noguchi signed its founding document. Lonergan's work was published in New Masses and Direction, prominent left-wing journals of the 1930s and 1940s.
In 1942 he took part in the National War Poster Competition. The competition was part of the United States' effort to raise support for the war
against the Axis Powers. Of the thousands of posters submitted, Lonergan's was one of two hundred chosen for an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art from November 1942 to January 1943.
During his life, Lonergan exhibited broadly. His work was shown at the Tucson Museum, Phillips Academy, Princeton University, the Whitney Museum, the Association of American Artists, the American Contemporary Art Gallery, the Dorothy Paris Gallery, and the Feragil Gallery. He also received awards from the American Arts Congress, the Roerich Museum, the Philadelphia Graphics Society and the International Workers Order
Lonergan's paintings were judged warmly by critics. Parnassus published by the College Art Association reviewed an exhibit and wrote:
"John Lonergan is represented by a number of lovely canvases, beautifully drawn and colored. He is a versatile painter who can use heavy colors and
pastel shades with equal effectiveness, and is capable of producing vigorous movement and life at one time and the enormous calm and sweetness of death
at another. He is a poet in color, a musician with many strings to play upon. Look at Circus Workers, Fisherman's Supper, and Ruins No.1
for example and you will see the different moods and impressions he can capture."
In In December 1935 American Magazine of Art reviewed an exhibit of his work and wrote:
"John Lonergan is a young painter who stands completely on his own feet. His small picture Pertaining to Rockport, captures a brooding mood in nature without over playing the pictoral element. His Quarry Derricks is not only larger in size but also in feeling and execution. There is a stark, forbidding grandeur about those silent crane-hoists seen against the bulk of a quarry mountain, stretching their thin, steel fingers into an ominous sky."
Lonergan was married to children's book author Joy Lonergan.

Collections

Lonergan's work is in the collections of several major American museums: