William Johnson (artist)

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For other persons named William Johnson, see William Johnson (disambiguation).

William Johnson (18 March 1901–1970) was an African American painter born in Florence, South Carolina.

[edit] Early life

He had little formal education but developed his drawing skills penning cartoons for local newspapers. Upon turning 17, he moved to New York, attending the National Academy of Design and Hawthorne's Cape Cod School of Art at Provincetown.

[edit] Career

He used his graduation funds to study for three years in Paris, absorbing the work of European Expressionists such as Chaïm Soutine. While in Paris he met his wife Holcha Krake, a textile designer. Together they traveled through Europe, eventually coming back to the U.S.A. in 1930. Soon after his arrival he won a “Distinguished Achievement among Negroes” award from the Harmon Foundation. He came to settle in Denmark with his wife, with visits to Tunisia and Scandinavia influencing his style further. The growing Nazi presence in Europe prompted his return to New York in 1938, where Johnson began depicting religious scenes from African American history.

In 1944 his wife, Holcha, died from breast cancer. To deal with his grief, he took work in a Navy Yard, and in 1946 left for Denmark to be with his wife's family. He soon fell ill himself, from the effects of advanced syphilis, and returned to New York in 1947 to enter the Central Islip State Hospital on Long Island, where he spent the remainder of his life. He stopped painting in 1956 and died in 1970.

Before his death he donated all of his work to the National Museum of American Art, now the Smithsonian American Art Museum. A major exhibition of his works, William H. Johnson’s World on Paper, was organized and circulated by the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The exhibition traveled to the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts.