March 15: William H. Johnson Birthday Celebration Featuring Lecture

Photo of Self Portrait painted in 1929. This is work is one of many on loan from the Smithsonian American Art Museum as part of William H. Johnson: New Beginnings.

The Florence County Museum to celebrate the birthday of noted artist & Florence native, William H. Johnson on Sunday March 15, 2015. 

The celebration will begin at 3:00 pm with a lecture at 3:30 pm by museum curator, Stephen W. Motte on the subject of Johnson’s 1930 and 1944 return visits to Florence. The lecture will be followed by a reception with refreshments. This birthday celebration is free to the public. The public is invited to attend and inspect the artist’s work on exhibit.

William H. Johnson: New Beginnings consists of nineteen works by the artist selected from the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Florence Museum Board of Trustees, the Johnson Collection, and a private collector in Denmark. This exhibit will be on display until October 5, 2015.

Event Details 

What:   Birthday celebration of artist, William H. Johnson (born March 18, 1901) with lecture on the subject of the artist’s 1930 and 1944 return visits to Florence.

Who:   Speaker, Stephen W. Motte, Curator of Collection and Interpretations, Florence County Museum.

Where:   Florence County Museum, 111 West Cheves Street, Florence SC

When:   3:00 pm, Sunday, March 15 2015

Cost:   Admission is free to the public

Contact:   For more information please contact: Stephen W. Motte, Curator of Collection and Interpretations, Florence County Museum (843) 676-1200 ext. 58202

About William H. Johnson

By almost any standard, William Henry Johnson (1901–1970) can be considered a major American artist. He produced hundreds of works in a virtuosic, eclectic career that spanned several decades as well as several continents. It was not until very recently, however, that his work began to receive the attention it deserves.

Born in Florence, South Carolina to a poor African-American family, Johnson moved to New York at age seventeen. Working a variety of jobs, he saved enough money to pay for an art education at the prestigious National Academy of Design. His mastery of the academy's rigorous standards gained him both numerous awards and the respect of his teachers and fellow students.

Johnson spent the late 1920s in France, absorbing the lessons of modernism. As a result, his work became more expressive and emotional. During this same period, he met and fell in love with Danish artist Holcha Krake, whom he married in 1930. The couple spent most of the '30s in Scandinavia, where Johnson's interest in primitivism art began to have a noticeable impact on his work.

Returning with Holcha to the U.S. in 1938, Johnson immersed himself in the traditions of Afro-America, producing work characterized by its stunning, eloquent, folk art simplicity. A Greenwich Village resident, he became a familiar, if somewhat aloof, figure on the New York art scene. He was also a well-established part of the African-American artistic community at a time when most black artists were still riding the crest of the Harlem Renaissance.

Although Johnson enjoyed a certain degree of success as an artist in this country and abroad, financial security remained elusive. Following his wife's death in 1944, Johnson's physical and mental health declined dramatically. In a tragic and drawn-out conclusion to a life of immense creativity, Johnson spent his last twenty-three years in a state hospital on Long Island. By the time of his death in 1970, he had slipped into obscurity. After his death, his entire life's work was almost disposed of to save storage fees, but it was rescued by friends at the last moment. Over a thousand paintings by Johnson are now part of the collection of the Smithsonian Institution's Smithsonian American Art Museum.

William H. Johnson: New Beginnings Exhibit at the Florence County Museum

This exhibit consists of works on loan from the Smithsonian American Art Museum and is hand selected by the curatorial staff of the Florence County Museum. It contains works by the artist in the museum’s collection, and works by the artist on loan from a private collector in Denmark.  William H. Johnson (1901-1970) was a native of the city of Florence and a major figure in 20th century American art. The Smithsonian owns more work of art by Johnson than any other single artists. This will be the first time the artist’s work will have been exhibited in his hometown of Florence, SC since the early 1970s.

Florence County Museum 

at 111 West Cheves Street 

Florence, SC 

Hours of Operation:

Tuesday through Saturday

10:00 am to 5:00 pm

Sunday: 2:00 pm to 5:00 pm

Admission is free. 

November 26th: Art 101 at ONE in Lake City

Art 101 at ONE

William H. Johnson: An American Modern Lecture Series

Devotion and Disrepute, William H. Johnson's Florence Paintings, 1944

Join us for a critical discussion of William Henry Johnson's Ring Around the Rosey and Aunt Alice, two pieces featured in the Smithsonian Exhibition, William H. Johnson: An American Modern. Both pieces pose interesting questions about the assumed incoherence, idiosyncrasy, and strangeness of Johnson's c.1944 paintings. Was this assumption true?

Tuesday, Nov. 26, 1–2PM • Lunch box crafted by Table 118

$10 per person, limited seating

For reservations call 843.374.0180 or stop by the ArtFields Gallery.

Art 101 at ONE in Lake City

Art 101 at ONE: Lunch Box Art Conversations coming to Lake City

Lake City's Jones-Carter Gallery to host W.H. Johnson Exhibit

A traveling exhibit of work by Florence’s own and one of America’s most powerful African-American painters William H. Johnson will visit the county for three months beginning in September, according to the Smithsonian Institution.

“William H. Johnson: An American Modern” is a traveling exhibit that features 20 pieces from the James E. Lewis Museum at Morgan State University. The work exhibits aspects of his career from post-impressionism and expressionism of the 1920s to his refined aesthetic in the 1940s through expressionist and vernacular landscapes, still life paintings and portraits that feature Johnson’s primitivism aesthetic within the context of modernism.

The work will be on display at the newly renovated Jones-Carter Gallery in Lake City from Sept. 21 to Dec. 29. Executive director of the Museum Society of Lake City Ray McBride, who oversees the gallery, said the exhibit was months in the making, but was confirmed last week per the facility being brought up to Smithsonian standards later this month by adding a fire suppression system and backup generator.

"It had been tentative that we could (get the exhibit) once we met requirements for the building,” McBride said. “We’ve reported hourly humidity for the past three months and progressed, bringing the building up to code with a timeline showing that we can meet the requirements.”

The $20,000 participation fee was covered by the museum. The Lake City Partnership Council will reportedly, through a grant, cover the gallery’s upfitting costs and for a conservator to unpack the exhibit, costs that McBride said will be worth it.

“This will possibly rival the numbers from ArtFields throughout the event,” McBride said. “It’s all about economic development and drawing people to Lake City.”

And with the largest exhibit of Johnson’s work on display in the state, interest is already mounting.

Born in Florence in 1901, Johnson moved to Harlem when he was 17, working odd jobs to save money to attend the National Academy of Design. Upon completion of school, Johnson’s teacher and mentor Charles Hawthorne helped Johnson study in France for three years; a transformational time for the young artist when he enhanced his painting style while studying European artists.

He returned to New York in 1929 and traveled to Denmark a year later where he married Danish artist Holcha Krake. He remained there, later moving to Norway, until returning to New York in 1938.

Johnson’s return marked a transition in his art, a transition where he began exploring the black experience, reminiscing of life in the rural south earlier in the century paired with upbeat ambiance of Harlem, according to Smithsonian American Art Museum chief curator Virginia Mecklenburg.

In 1941 Johnson had a solo exhibition, but a series of events over the next few years caused his decline including a studio fire and the death of his wife, pushing him back to South Carolina for support and then to Denmark where he was diagnosed with advanced syphilis. He returned to New York in 1947 where he remained in a hospital for 23 years until his death in 1970. He ceased painting in 1956.

More than 1,000 of Johnson’s artworks were saved from destruction by the Harmon Foundation and donated to what is now the Smithsonian American Art Museum under the terms that the Smithsonian donates artworks to several black colleges and universities.

The exhibit will open to the public on Sept. 21 during the South Carolina Tobacco Festival.

Article by Gavin Jackson; reposted from scnow.com.

William H. Johnson Commemorative Stamp Issuance

The Trustees of the Florence Museum and the United States Postal Service are proud to announce the circulation of a commemorative Forever® stamp honoring Florence, SC native William H. Johnson, featuring still-life Flowers. A ceremony will be held at the Florence Museum on Wednesday, April 11, 2012 beginning at 3:30 PM.  This free event is open to the public with a small reception and an opportunity to purchase marked first day of circulation envelopes. Forever stamps are always equal in value to the current First-Class Mail one-ounce rate.

Flowers, an oil-on-plywood painting dated 1939-1940, depicts a vase of boldly rendered, brightly colored blooms on a small red table. The consciously “naive” style in which Flowers was painted was one of the many techniques of modernist abstraction and “primitive” art adapted by Johnson during his career. A gift of the Harmon Foundation, the painting belongs to the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

The Florence Museum has made a commitment to honor the life of William H. Johnson and to interpret his importance to our community and the art world.  Currently the Museum exhibits five of his works representing distinct periods of the artist’s development.  In May of 2012, the Florence County Museum will begin construction on its new facility in downtown Florence.  Strengthening their commitment, the new facility will provide a larger opportunity to honor Johnson’s life, artistic contributions and heritage.

William H. Johnson (1901-1970)

Born on March 18, 1901 in Florence, South Carolina, William Henry Johnson is one of our country’s foremost African-American artists. Recognized today as a major figure of 20^th century American art, he is best known for his dramatic Scandinavian landscapes and colorful, folk-inspired scenes of African-American daily life.

During his childhood Johnson practiced drawing by copying comic strips from the newspaper. At the age of 17, he moved to Harlem where he worked a variety of jobs to save enough money to pay tuition at the prestigious National Academy of Design in New York City.  Johnson was admitted to the Academy in 1921 and studied under the noted painter Charles Webster Hawthorne, who became his mentor and friend.

In 1926, with funds raised by Hawthorne, Johnson left the U.S. to study modernism in Paris and in the south of France.  He retuned to Florence, SC that year to spend time with his friends and relatives.  His mother was able to secure an art exhibit in the hallways at the Florence YMCA where she worked as a cook.  This exhibit featured 135 paintings by Johnson and was open for one day.  It was during this time period that Johnson submerged himself into what he calls Primitivism.  When asked why he had changed from more traditional forms of painting to his recent style Johnson answered:

“It was not a change but a development.  In all my years of painting, I have had one absorbing and inspiring idea, and have worked towards it with unyielding zeal: to give in simple and stark form – the story of the Negro as he has existed.”

In May 1930, Johnson moved to Denmark and married textile artist Holcha Krake, whom he had met in France. The couple first made their home in Kerteminde, a Danish fishing village, and later in Norway. For several years they exhibited jointly and traveled throughout Scandinavia, Europe, and North Africa.

In November 1938, the couple moved to New York City to escape impending war in Europe. Johnson joined the WPA Federal Art Project in May 1939 and was assigned to teach at the Harlem Community Art Center. In August of that year, he transferred to the WPA mural project. His first major solo exhibition in New York opened in May 1941.

Following his wife’s death in 1944, Johnson’s physical and mental health declined dramatically. He spent the last 23 years of his life in a mental institution on Long Island, where he died on April 13, 1970. 

Johnson's Artwork Becomes a Stamp

Florence native William H. Johnson’s 1,000-some paintings have been viewed by large audience.

It’s about to get larger.

The United States Postal Service will issue a Johnson stamp this spring. The new stamp, which will picture a still-life, will be issued as a Forever stamp, a collection that is always equal to the value of the First Class Mail one ounce rate (currently 45 cents).

Johnson was born in Florence in 1901. His career moved from its beginnings of copying newspaper comics to studying art in New York and France before traversing parts of North America, Europe and Africa to exhibit his works. He was awarded a gold medal of achievement from the then-renowned William E. Harmon Foundation in 1926, which aided in the cultivation of his fame.

Although Johnson painted in a number of styles, he’s generally recognized as one of the best “primitivists,” an art form noted for both its simplicity and its reliance on so-called primitive subjects and forms.

While most of his works hang in the Smithsonian Institution, the Florence Museum currently houses five paintings by Johnson, who is today recognized for his work in primitivism. The museum is located at 558 Spruce St.

This article  was originally found on scnow.com.