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WILLIAM H. JOHNSON, An Artist of the World Scene
© Copyright 1969 Prothmann Associates Inc.
Commentary
By David Driskell, Chairman,
Art Dept., Fisk University,
Nashville, Tennessee. 37203

William H. Johnson, the American artist of Negro origin, saw a colorful lyrical world, as he made his way from the Deep South, across Europe and North Africa, and into the clear mountain air of Norway above the Arctic Circle. On this twenty year odyssey, he observed life and customs through the universal language of art. He painted hundreds of oils, watercolors, gouaches and pen and ink sketches; and further recorded his impressions with block prints and silk screens -- each motif representing a novel artistic experience.

Johnson was born in the Negro section of Florence, South Carolina, in 1901. His parents were poor, simple-living folk. His schooling had to be brief, because as the eldest of five children, he had to begin to work while still very young so that he could support the family. In those years, at the start of the century there was little opportunity to alter these circumstances. Yet, he worked at this strange ambition the best way he could for he was determined to become an artist.

JOHNSON BEGINS BY COPYING CARTOONS

"I began copying the humorous drawings in our newspapers", he says, "And the joy I derived from these may without a doubt be ascribed to the way we primitive people always adore caricatures".

"You have to search your way forward", he said once many years later in an interview in Stockholm, Sweden. "You have to dare something when you are young". 

From copying cartoons as a method of self-training in art, he derived the ability to tell a story in a picture. This caricature-like lilt is evident throughout his entire art career. He had five years of formal training at the National Academy of Design in New York, working during all of that time at any kind of job, for in addition to maintaining himself he was helping support the home back in Florence. He won outstanding art prizes while a student. In 1926, through the interest of friends of the late Charles W. Hawthorne, an outstanding artist of the time, a fund was raised to send this young artist abroad for study.

Johnson's short story painting technique became apparent in his first impressionistic work in France and Corsica. It can be noted in the strong blue skies of the Riviera, the crooked streets running a rick-rack course up a hill and carrying the sun-baked buildings along with them. He seemed to know how to get down to the bare essentials and to emphasize only what he needed. In late 1929, upon returning to this country his work was recognized and in January 1930 the Harmon Foundation gave him the Gold Award in Art.

MARRIAGE TO A DANISH ARTIST

That same year he went back to Europe and married the Danish ceramic and textile artist, Holcha Krake. They had met the year before at Cagnes-sur-Mer, the artist colony in Southern France where she had gone with her sister and brother-in-law, a German sculptor. All had traveled together across France and Belgium and finally to Holcha's home in Odense where Johnson had been warmly received by her family.