Faulkner, John (c.1830–1890), landscape and marine painter, was born in Dublin. He trained at the School of Landscape and Ornament of the Royal Dublin Society Schools (1848) and exhibited his first works, with the RHA (1853), from an address at 29 Upper Rathmines, Dublin, showing views of Killiney and the Wicklow coast. He was made an associate of the RHA in July 1861 and was a full member by the following September. His preferred medium was watercolour, and he painted fairly large-scale landscapes and marine paintings inspired in the early years by the countryside and coastline of south Dublin and Wicklow.
He travelled quite extensively, judging by the titles of the works he sent to the RHA exhibitions, and the early 1860s found him in Scotland. He exhibited Pass at Glencoe in 1861, and views from Cork in 1863 and Sligo and Donegal in 1864. Strickland described his life and habits as irregular, leading in some way to his losing his membership of the academy in 1870. Certainly no work of his was exhibited between 1869 and 1880. He must have been in America for some of that period, as there is a painting by him of the Shenandoah valley that is dated 1869.
On his return, he seems to have settled in London, making the odd painting trip to Ireland: he sent work to the RHA in 1880 from an address in London and again in 1885–6. His final exhibit was a continental work, ‘Coblenz from the Moselle’ (1887). While in London, he made his living painting for the dealers. His sea pictures are particularly striking, full of life and energy. His ‘Cliffs at the base of Slievemore, Achill Island’ (1879) and ‘Off Cape Clear, Co. Cork’, both in the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, demonstrate his mastery in the painting of sea and sky, and his ability to create mood and atmosphere. He died in 1890.