FALCONER, John M., artist, born in Edinburgh, Scotland, 22 May 1820. He was educated at the high school in Edinburgh, and came to the United States at the age of sixteen. He studied art in the National academy of design, and with the Society of painters in watercolors in New York City, in the Graham art school and that of the Art association of Brooklyn, and in the Louvre at Paris. He became a member of the New York art reunion and New York sketch union in 1847, was a member of the Society of painters in watercolors, and exhibited in their collection in the Crystal Palace, New York, in 1854. He became an honorary member of the National academy of design in 1856, of the Artists' fund society in 1861, of the American watercolor society in 1872, of the New York etching club in 1879, and fellow of the Painters' and etchers' society of London, England, in 1882.

He proposed the first exhibition of engravings in the United States, which was successfully held in Brooklyn in 1864, as part of the art department of the U. S. sanitary fair, and organized the first chronological exhibition of American art in the United States, which was held at the opening of the galleries of the Brooklyn art association in 1872, and the first exhibition of watercolor paintings by the Artists' fund society of New York, out of which grew the present American watercolor society. He has made numerous paintings in oil of American and European subjects, including "Kenilworth Castle," "House where the Declaration of Independence was Written," and "Robert Fulton's House in Philadelphia." In watercolors he produced the " William Penn Mansion," exhibited, with others of his works, by the American watercolor society at the Centennial exhibition in 1876, and a series of "Historic Houses" in enamel on' porcelain, now in the possession of the Long Island historical society. He has also restored many oil paintings, and etched on copper fifty plates from his own works, and twenty from those of other artists. He wrote a "Sketch of the History of Watercolor Painting" for the Society of painters in watercolors (1852), and has compiled the "Catalogue Raisonn6e of the Chronological Exhibition of American Art " (Brooklyn, 1872).