John Carroll Doyle was born in Charleston in 1942, and is nationally known for his energetic, light filled paintings of subjects as diverse as blues musicians, blue marlins and blue hydrangeas. The artist got his start with his distinctive sportfishing paintings which have graced the covers of many popular sportfishing magazines in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. He continued to make a name for himself throughout the 1980’s with his now famous and large scale commissioned paintings that can be seen on the walls of many of downtown Charleston’s beloved restaurants, as well as clubs and restaurants as far afield as Chicago, Illinois and Alexandria, Virginia.
With a career that spans four decades, John has become a seasoned American Impressionist whose muse has always been Charleston and the surrounding lowcountry. From wildlife to still life, John Doyle paints with a passion and understanding that makes it hard to believe he is self taught.
Doyle claims as his “teachers” the wooden boats at the Charleston Yacht Basin, lavender shadows on Charleston stucco, and the coastal sunlight that floods this city year-round. In 1997 the artist completed an autobiography entitled John Carroll Doyle: Portrait of a Charleston Artist. Lavishly illustrated with color reproductions of the artist’s work and vintage black and white photographs of Charleston from the 1940’s and 50’s, the book tells not only the story of Doyle’s development as an artist, but also the transformation of Charleston from a sleepy town to a bustling tourist destination.
