The Trustees of the Florence Museum of Art, Science and History in Florence, SC, will host a birthday celebration for William H. Johnson on Saturday, March 19, 2011, on the lawn of the museum. The celebration will begin at 2pm with a short program at 2:15pm, followed by a reception. The Trustees will also unveil their most recent acquisition at the event. This birthday celebration is open and free to the public.
William Henry Johnson (1901-1970) led an extraordinary, art-filled life. Born in Florence, SC, Johnson recognized early that his aspirations were to become an artist. After graduating from Wilson High School in 1918, he migrated to New York City where he was soon admitted to the prestigious art school, the National Academy of Design. There he excelled in painting, studying with noted artist Charles Webster Hawthorne. In 1926 upon graduation, with private funds raised by Hawthorne, Johnson departed for France to further his studies.
Paris in the 1920’s was a vibrant place, populated with writers and artists such as Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, and Josephine Baker. Johnson quickly fell under its charismatic spell. He settled in the former studio of James McNeill Whistler, and soon adopted the multifaceted manner of painting that was then popular in France.
In 1930, Johnson returned to New York and set up a studio in Harlem. His French-inspired European landscapes and portraits attracted the attention of the New York art world. With his receipt of a Harmon Foundation gold medal, his fame soon spread. News of his award appeared in newspapers in Boston, Nashville, San Diego, Denver, Houston, Kansas City, and even his hometown of Florence, where he visited in the early 1930’s. During his visit home, Johnson was given the chance to exhibit his work for one day at the Florence YMCA.
Johnson’s search for home and heritage was grounded in his southern roots. The South was the source of his deep-seated memories of endless fields of cotton and tobacco, one-room wooden shacks, rickety wagons pulled by powerful mules and oxen, and stoic, denim-clad farm workers. In his paintings, Johnson repositioned the standard folk narratives about rural people and the South along an incredibly modern style by using simplified, colorful forms.
Johnson’s first major solo exhibition in New York opened in May 1941. It was the first time most of his African American, folk-inspired paintings were shown. The exhibition was reviewed by the two major art journals, Art News and Art Digest, and by all the large daily newspapers in New York. It was a promising beginning for his second American career.
For much of his painting career, Johnson sought to look beyond the technical aspects of art. Summing up his own personal philosophy, Johnson said, “My aim is to express in a natural way what I feel, what is in me, both rhythmically and spiritually, all that which in time has been saved up in my family of primitiveness and tradition, and which is now concentrated in me.”
Johnson returned to Florence, after being gone for almost fifteen years. While there, he continued to work in a bold and colorful manner, producing a series of portraits of family members and friends. After returning to New York in the late 1940’s he was hospitalized at the Long Island’s Central Islip State Hospital. He spent twenty-three years there, dying in 1970.
The Florence Museum is located at 558 Spruce Street in Florence and is open Tue.-Sat., 10am-5pm and Sun., 2-5pm.
For further information call the Museum at 843/662-3351 or visit (www.florencemuseum.org).
Carolina Arts News 