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"William H. Johnson's World' at Art Museum (1st review)
An artist's world (and a movement's world, too)
ANNE R. FABBRI
“William H. Johnson’s World on Paper” opens a door to the world of an artist, creating a fascinating journey in time. Seventy-nine watercolor drawings, block prints and serigraphs (screen prints) tell us so much about an artist’s life in the first half of the 20th Century that we feel as if we’ve experienced it— from contact with the expressionist painters such as Vincent van Gogh and the rough hewn neo- primitivism of Chaim Soutine to the artist’s own unique style.
“A man who has talent doesn’t ask anybody whether he has it but goes ahead and does what he does because he can’t help doing it,” said William H. Johnson (1901–1970).
He had such an innate drive to make art that it took him from his boyhood home in South Carolina to New York at age 17 and to classes at the National Academy of Design. Recognizing his talent, his teacher, Charles Hawthorne, raised enough money for Johnson to go to Europe in 1926. There he had an opportunity to meet and study first hand the work of modern artists. The first half of this exhibition illustrates his response.
From the Deep South to Hitler’s Europe
Johnson, an African American Southerner, created paintings that looked like van Gogh’s but with a restraint reflecting our culture of that period. He made hand-colored woodblock prints, portraits that put him in the middle of the Expressionist movement— that in a few lines captured the individual characteristics of the subject. He was part of the Modernist tide that swept the Continent and eventually the U.S.
After Johnson married Holcha Krake, a Danish weaver and ceramist, in 1930, his world expanded to include the folk art and traditions of Scandinavia, followed by Africa, where he could seek his cultural roots. Works in this exhibition reveal the gradual transition. He went from sensuous paintings and prints inspired by Edward Munch to wood block portraits of the fishermen in the village. Look at these heads. Jon Fisherman (1930-38) is a tough old guy with no illusions. Don’t try to sell him any mirages. He has seen and heard it all.
Incubation period
The threat of war and Nazi terrorism precipitated the Johnsons’ move back to the U.S. (Hitler shook the tree and the plums fell here.) And here he created his own unique style: an amalgam of the expressionist abstract movement with a folk art motif. Johnson began using linoleum instead of wood for his block prints, so his lines became finer and more detailed. He adopted silkscreen printing as well as serigraphs (popular with artists in the 1930s) and worked in flat patterns, distortions and vibrant colors.
Johnson’s years in Europe must have been an incubation period for his depictions of African Americans in New York and the South. His scenes of life in the rural South, with isolated incidents, capture its pulse but seem more symbolic than real. Memory colors things differently.
Can’t keep your feet still
Do you or have you ever jitterbugged? If so, the beat is part of you. And while looking at his series of five serigraphs, Jitterbug, you can hardly keep your feet still. Remember the basic steps? I couldn’t help doing a few in front of the prints.
The series begins with an almost realistic image of a mod man and woman dancing to that certain beat. From there, they become progressively more abstract, but the beat remains. My favorite was the most abstract image, all jutting lines and pulsating music. Johnson captured the energy that was America in the 1940s.
Unfortunately, Johnson’s wife died in 1943, and by 1946 he had developed paresis that incapacitated him mentally and physically. His life in art ended, but his influence rolls on, inexorably gaining momentum.
Echoes in the main corridor
Leaving the exhibition in the Berman and Stieglitz Galleries on the ground floor, I walked back to the main corridor, and there, facing me, were Milton Avery’s Interlude (1960) and Bob Thompson’s The Deposition (1961), both of them recalling Johnson’s flat patterning of figures in landscapes isolated from reality. Beauford Delaney’s Portrait of James Baldwin (1945) is part of the same type of imagery as Johnson’s portraits of fishermen.
The basic Johnson exhibition, organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum, is supplemented by eight prints from the PMA’s collection, plus five paintings and three prints from private Philadelphia collections.
Together they provide not only a chance to witness the coming of age of a great artist, but also a firsthand glimpse at the history of the modern movement in the first half of the 20th Century. It still shapes our vision today.
To read another review by Patrick D. Hazard, click here.
ANNE R. FABBRI
“William H. Johnson’s World on Paper” opens a door to the world of an artist, creating a fascinating journey in time. Seventy-nine watercolor drawings, block prints and serigraphs (screen prints) tell us so much about an artist’s life in the first half of the 20th Century that we feel as if we’ve experienced it— from contact with the expressionist painters such as Vincent van Gogh and the rough hewn neo- primitivism of Chaim Soutine to the artist’s own unique style.
“A man who has talent doesn’t ask anybody whether he has it but goes ahead and does what he does because he can’t help doing it,” said William H. Johnson (1901–1970).
He had such an innate drive to make art that it took him from his boyhood home in South Carolina to New York at age 17 and to classes at the National Academy of Design. Recognizing his talent, his teacher, Charles Hawthorne, raised enough money for Johnson to go to Europe in 1926. There he had an opportunity to meet and study first hand the work of modern artists. The first half of this exhibition illustrates his response.
From the Deep South to Hitler’s Europe
Johnson, an African American Southerner, created paintings that looked like van Gogh’s but with a restraint reflecting our culture of that period. He made hand-colored woodblock prints, portraits that put him in the middle of the Expressionist movement— that in a few lines captured the individual characteristics of the subject. He was part of the Modernist tide that swept the Continent and eventually the U.S.
After Johnson married Holcha Krake, a Danish weaver and ceramist, in 1930, his world expanded to include the folk art and traditions of Scandinavia, followed by Africa, where he could seek his cultural roots. Works in this exhibition reveal the gradual transition. He went from sensuous paintings and prints inspired by Edward Munch to wood block portraits of the fishermen in the village. Look at these heads. Jon Fisherman (1930-38) is a tough old guy with no illusions. Don’t try to sell him any mirages. He has seen and heard it all.
Incubation period
The threat of war and Nazi terrorism precipitated the Johnsons’ move back to the U.S. (Hitler shook the tree and the plums fell here.) And here he created his own unique style: an amalgam of the expressionist abstract movement with a folk art motif. Johnson began using linoleum instead of wood for his block prints, so his lines became finer and more detailed. He adopted silkscreen printing as well as serigraphs (popular with artists in the 1930s) and worked in flat patterns, distortions and vibrant colors.
Johnson’s years in Europe must have been an incubation period for his depictions of African Americans in New York and the South. His scenes of life in the rural South, with isolated incidents, capture its pulse but seem more symbolic than real. Memory colors things differently.
Can’t keep your feet still
Do you or have you ever jitterbugged? If so, the beat is part of you. And while looking at his series of five serigraphs, Jitterbug, you can hardly keep your feet still. Remember the basic steps? I couldn’t help doing a few in front of the prints.
The series begins with an almost realistic image of a mod man and woman dancing to that certain beat. From there, they become progressively more abstract, but the beat remains. My favorite was the most abstract image, all jutting lines and pulsating music. Johnson captured the energy that was America in the 1940s.
Unfortunately, Johnson’s wife died in 1943, and by 1946 he had developed paresis that incapacitated him mentally and physically. His life in art ended, but his influence rolls on, inexorably gaining momentum.
Echoes in the main corridor
Leaving the exhibition in the Berman and Stieglitz Galleries on the ground floor, I walked back to the main corridor, and there, facing me, were Milton Avery’s Interlude (1960) and Bob Thompson’s The Deposition (1961), both of them recalling Johnson’s flat patterning of figures in landscapes isolated from reality. Beauford Delaney’s Portrait of James Baldwin (1945) is part of the same type of imagery as Johnson’s portraits of fishermen.
The basic Johnson exhibition, organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum, is supplemented by eight prints from the PMA’s collection, plus five paintings and three prints from private Philadelphia collections.
Together they provide not only a chance to witness the coming of age of a great artist, but also a firsthand glimpse at the history of the modern movement in the first half of the 20th Century. It still shapes our vision today.
To read another review by Patrick D. Hazard, click here.
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