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Lester Johnson | |||||||||
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Title: City Scene Blue #1 (1972) oil on canvas - 30"H x 40"W Biography: | |||||||||
Lester Johnson was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1919 and studied at the Minneapolis School of Art with Alexander Casley, at the St. Paul School of Art with Cameron Booth, and later at the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1947 he moved to New York City, attended classes at the Hoffmann School and rented a lower east side loft which Larry Rivers later asked to share with him. Early "Action Painting" figures were dark anonymous silhouettes, painted thickly. Over the years his emphasis shifted from physical form to the psychological content of his subjects. Johnson was greatly inspired by the movement of the city streets and by the people he observed near his studio in the Bowery. From 1958 to 1959 Johnson showed at City Gallery, an alternative exhibition space opened by Red Grooms and Jay Milder. He was a guest exhibitor in one of the Rhino Horn shows. In 1964 he was appointed Professor of Art at Yale University and served as a director of studies for the Yale School of Art and Architecture. Throughout the last four decades Johnson has continued to explore the human condition in his paintings and drawings and has attempted to prove that "man is more than a man". A recipient of numerous honors of distinction including a Guggenheim fellowship in 1973, Johnson was elected to the National Academy of Design in 1987. He lives and continues to work in Greenwich, Connecticut. | |||||||||
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