John T. Trullinger

J. T. Trullinger

Trullinger, John T.

John T. Trullinger

Forest Grove 1870

Portland 1960

painter

Northwest artist

Oregon artist

John Trullinger was born to pioneer businessman/inventer John C. Trullinger and Hannah Boyle. At age five his family moved to Astoria where they owned and operated a sawmill and box factory. In 1885 John and his brothers became electricians and stockholders in their father's electric company, producing the first electric light system on the North coast. From 1886 to 1888 Trullinger was a member of the Oregon National Guard, listing his profession as musician and fireman. By 1895 he was producing portraits, including a likeness of his future wife, Sadie Gilbert.

In 1902 Trullinger decided, "Even to be a poor artist would be more pleasurable than to be a successful businessman" and left for England with his wife. He attended art school there and continued his studies in Paris from 1904 to 1909. In 1909 his painting, Lady with a Parasol, a portrait of his wife, was accepted for exhibition at the Paris Salon by the Société des Artistes Français. He was the only resident Oregon painter of his day to have been so honored. The Trullinger family returned to Portland in 1910 to a one person exhibit of his paintings at the Portland Art Museum. Soon after his return he opened a studio in the Commonwealth Building in Portland and began executing portrait commissions. He painted a commissioned portrait of Louise Bryant, at that time married to his cousin Paul. After a divorce in 1912 he met and established residence with Edna Goodhue in 1916, with whom he spent the next forty years. Trullinger participated in the WPA exhibit of paintings at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C. in 1934.

Trullinger's figures painted indoors were solidly constructed, academic, and somewhat conservative. In contrast, his landscapes displayed a mosaic of pigment and tactile surfaces in an impressionist style. To Trullinger's dismay he discovered it was very difficult for a practicing artist to find sufficient patronage to enable him to live comfortably; he addressed this problem in an article in the Oregonian. His sister, Isabelle Trullinger Geer, was also an artist.

Artist biography reproduced with permission from the authors, Oregon Painters: the First Hundred Years (1859-1959), Ginny Allen and Jody Klevit.

Male