Enduring Voices Catalogue (6-21-23) - Flipbook - Page 19
William H.
JOHNSON
(1901-1970)
Best known for his paintings and prints of portraits and
landscapes, William H. Johnson was a world traveler whose
work was influenced by New York, European, and North
African culture.
Born in Florence, South Carolina, at seventeen Johnson moved
to New York City where he worked a variety of jobs to pay tuition
at the prestigious National Academy of Design, where he won
numerous Academy awards. Johnson spent a year in Paris in 1927
before moving to Cagnes-sur-Mer, a French Riviera town that was
home to numerous artists and literary figures at the time. There,
Johnson studied modernism, which resulted in work that was
more expressive and emotional.
He returned to New York City in 1929 during the Harlem
Renaissance and then returned to Europe to marry Danish
artist Holcha Krake, sixteen years his senior, in 1930. Living in
Scandinavia with Holcha throughout the 30s, Johnson immersed
himself in primitive and folk art, a style for which he is widely
known today. The couple returned to the United States in
1938, where Johnson’s work, both vibrant and somber, was
characterized by his intensely primitivist style.
Following Holcha’s death in 1944, Johnson’s mental health began
to decline, and he spent the remaining years of his life in a state
hospital on Long Island, unable to produce work.
WILLIAM H. JOHNSON
NOTICING GAPS IN ART HISTORY
Though we first developed a significant interest in the
art of Romare Bearden, we were pretty soon looking at
other African American artists, and became convinced
of their importance. This was pretty early in the 1980s
and 1990s, and now everybody has awakened to the
central place of African American art within American
art history. That was not always the case.
We looked at the work of William H. Johnson,
who had studied in France very early in his career
and painted that scene that looks like a French
Impressionist painting. He classically trained and
then came back to the United States and began to
work in a completely different mode. For example, the
later work On a John Brown Flight almost looks like
folk art, and we found that immensely interesting as
to what that said about the opportunities for African
American artists and how they responded to their
culture when they studied abroad and came back.
The John Brown piece conveys a potentially
interesting message. Think about the fact that
such artists were not necessarily recognized in the
classical tradition in which they trained. Looking at
these paintings and the dates and times that they
were done, there exists a connection to the larger
mainstream of American art. There is also this
interesting gap period in our art and culture that
we are only now beginning to fill in.
–Susan S. and David R. Goode
Interesting Johnson Fact:
Having died destitute, William H. Johnson’s entire life’s work was almost disposed of to save storage fees. At the last minute, it was rescued
by friends, and more than a thousand paintings by Johnson are now part of the collection of the Smithsonian Institution’s American Art Museum.
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