page_title: William Johnson (artist)
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: William Johnson (artist) / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: Three women in coats and hats.
context_page_description: William Henry Johnson was an American painter. Born in Florence, South Carolina, he became a student at the National Academy of Design in New York City, working with Charles Webster Hawthorne. He later lived and worked in France, where he was exposed to modernism. After Johnson married Danish textile artist Holcha Krake, the couple lived for some time in Scandinavia. There he was influenced by the strong folk art tradition. The couple moved to the United States in 1938. Johnson eventually found work as a teacher at the Harlem Community Art Center, through the Federal Art Project.
  Johnson's style evolved from realism to expressionism to a powerful folk style, for which he is best known. A substantial collection of his paintings, watercolors, and prints is held by the Smithsonian American Art Museum, which has organized and circulated major exhibitions of his works.
context_section_description: Johnson arrived in Paris, France in the fall of 1927. He spent a year in Paris, and had his first solo exhibition at the Students and Artists Club in November 1927.  Next he moved to Cagnes-sur-Mer in the south of France, influenced by the work of expressionist painter Chaim Soutine. In France,  Johnson learned about modernism.
  During this time, Johnson met the Danish textile artist Holcha Krake (April 6, 1885 – January 13, 1944). Holcha was traveling with her sister Erna, who was also a painter, and Erna's husband, the expressionist sculptor Christoph Voll. Johnson was invited to join them on a tour of Corsica.  Johnson and Holcha were deeply attracted in spite of differences in race, culture, and age.
  Johnson returned to the United States in 1929. Fellow artist George Luks encouraged Johnson to enter his work at the Harmon Foundation to be considered for the William E. Harmon Foundation Award for Distinguished Achievement Among Negroes in the Fine Arts Field. As a result, Johnson received the Harmon gold medal in the fine arts. He was applauded as a "real modernist", "spontaneous, vigorous, firm, direct". Other winners of the fine art award include Palmer Hayden, May Howard Jackson and Laura Wheeler Waring.
  While in the United States, Johnson also visited his family in Florence, where he painted a considerable number of new works.  He was apparently  almost arrested while painting the Jacobia Hotel, a once-fashionable town landmark which had become a dilapidated house of ill-repute. Whether Johnson's actions or his choice of subject were at issue is unknown. During this visit, Johnson was able to publicly exhibit his paintings twice.  The first occasion was at a meeting of the Florence County Teachers Institute on February 22, 1930. The second was at a local YMCA where Johnson's mother worked. Her boss, Bill Covington, arranged for Johnson to exhibit 135 of his paintings for a single afternoon, on April 15, 1930. Although the Florence Morning News described Johnson condescendingly as a "humble ... Negro youth", it also stated that he had "real genius".
  Johnson returned to Europe in 1930 by working his way to France on a freighter. He went to Funen, a Danish island, to rejoin Holcha Krake.  The couple signed a prenuptial agreement on May 28, 1930, and were married a few days later in the town of Kerteminde. Johnson and his wife spent most of the 1930s in Scandinavia, where his interest in folk art influenced his painting. However, as Nazi sentiments increased in Germany and Europe in the late 1930s, many artists were affected. Johnson's brother-in-law Christoph Voll was fired from his teaching position, and his art was labelled "degenerate". Johnson and Krake chose to move to the United States in 1938.
  With the help of Mary Beattie Brady, Johnson eventually found work as a teacher at the Harlem Community Art Center. There he and other teachers instructed about 600 students per week, as part of a local Federal Art Project supported by the Works Progress Administration. Through the center Johnson met important Harlem inhabitants such as Henry Bannarn and Gwendolyn Knight. He immersed himself in African-American culture and traditions, producing paintings that were characterized by their folk art simplicity. Johnson was determined to "paint his own people". He celebrated African American culture and imagery in the urban settings of pieces such as Street life - Harlem, Cafe, and Street Musicians, and in the rural settings of Farm Couple at Work, Sowing, and Going to Market.  Harsher realities of Negro life were depicted in Chain Gang and Moon over Harlem, which was a response to the 1943 racial riots in New York. Another series of works showed war-time soldiers and nurses.  Johnson held a solo exhibition at Alma Reed Galleries in 1941. However, although he enjoyed a degree of success as an artist during the 1940s and 1950s, he was never able to achieve financial stability.
  On a personal level, the 1940s were difficult. Bad news came from Europe.  Christoph Voll died in Karlsruhe, Germany, on June 16, 1939, after interrogati
caption: Three Friends (ca. 1944), by William H. Johnson
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "6766", "Image ImageLength": "9260", "Image BitsPerSample": "[16, 16, 16]", "Image Compression": "Uncompressed", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image ImageDescription": "1971.136 013", "Image Make": "Hasselblad/Imacon", "Image Model": "Hasselblad CF528 - Hasselblad H1", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image PlanarConfiguration": "1", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2007:02:26 15:38:54", "Image Artist": "SAAMphoto", "Image ExifOffset": "380", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "742", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5742", "EXIF ExposureTime": "429496729/536870912", "EXIF FNumber": "12", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "50", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0210", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:01:08 11:03:42", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:01:08 11:03:42", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "172833829/536870912", "EXIF ApertureValue": "962331043/134217728", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Average", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "80", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1023", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1400"}