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Wm. H. Johnson 3. as a whole in the picture, found some of the musical sense of the spirituals translated and expressed in paint. While they were exhibiting in Oslo, a young man came in to see the pictures and the expression on his face showed how much pleasure they gave him. He turned out to be Rolf Stenerson, a director of a Dutch bank in Oslo, and a collector of Munch's pictures, which he invited the Johnsons to come and see. He has promised to leave the collection to Norway if they will build a museum to hang them. There are about 800 pieces and it would take a large building. The state does not know whether they can afford the price. Munch is living in retirement, refusing to see anyone except Stenerson, because he feels that his people have not appreciated his work. But Stenerson finally arranged an interview for Johnson and Munch seemed to feel a kindred spirit. Johnson thinks he is having the same trouble here that Munch has in Norway. When Johnson was in Africa, the natives were very friendly because he looked like an Arab, one of their own people, so they were invited into their homes and saw their families and their women. They saw a marriage fiesta that lasted for seven days. All that rhythm from the night before made inspiration for a picture he painted the next morning. They went to Kairouan, the biggest holy city next to Mecca, has 85 mosques, and saw the desert from the tower of the minaret, caravans coming from all directions toward the central point where they were standing, spreading their goods in the street, marvelous color, barter their wares, and then between night and day you see them go off over the sand into the horizon. Their ceramics had the same techniques as before the time of Christ. Get their colors from the mountain same as then. Sold a watercolor from Africa to a collector here from his show at the Artists' Gallery. He is represented in many Scandinavian museums and in still more private collections. Director of Swedish Artists Association bought one of his pictures personally. When he paints a landscape, he only uses the landscape as something to build art from. To paint a picture that reaches the level of art, the painter creates something personal and uses the landscape as the motive for creating this feeling of art. Otherwise it isn't art but just a copy of nature. Introduction of his personality makes it a creation, must always renew himself if he is going to create. Carlyle Burrows in Herald Tribune re his Artists' Gallery Exhibit: The result of travels in Europe and Africa, has been heavily influenced by African primitives. It is rude, highly emotional art, with a touch of Rockwell Kent apparent in it. In landscape he manages to convey some of the sense of primitive awe in natural phenomena - mountains, lakes, the sky and the like. He has 6 pictures on exhibit now at the Nierendorf Gall [[strikethrough]] i [[/strikethrough]] eries for sale. CWS 4/24/39
