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Ynez Johnston'Tribal Coast', Expressionist Woman artist, Museum of Modern Art, Guggenheim 1964
1964
About the Item
Signed lower right, 'Ynez Johnston' (American, b. 1920) and dated 1964; additionally inscribed 'imp' lower right, titled lower center 'Tribal Coast' with number and limitation, 198/210', lower left.
Framed Dimensions: 21.25 H x 26.5 W x 1.5 D Inches
Born in Berkeley, California, Johnston first studied drafting, painting and printmaking at the University of California with Worth Ryder, Erle Loran and Margaret Peterson. Her work is characterized by "jigsaw" shapes reminiscent of primitive, tribal designs. This unique style blends modernism and ancient art forms from her travels to Italy, Mexico, India and Nepal. She has also undertaken 3-dimensional pieces in collaboration with her husband, poet and novelist John Berry, as well as with ceramic sculptor Adam Mekler.
Johnston's 1951, one woman show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York created significant public interest in her work and initiated her career as a successful artist. Her oils and etchings of the 1950s and 1960s became more ambitious in their use of complex imagery while displaying a consistently disciplined and harmonised use of color.
In later mixed-media pieces, Johnston examines the tactile qualities of surface. The paintings involve the combination, and occasional lamination, of diverse material soil, acrylic, dyes, encaustic on cloth, canvas, and raw silk. The colors are vibrant and the images are composite forms suggesting ambiguous architectural, human, animal and plant shapes. She cites Persian and Indian art as influences along with such artists as Matisse, Miro, Klee and Picasso.
Johnston has been the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships including a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. She has exhibited widely and with success, winning a variety of medals, prizes and juried awards including First Prize in watercolor at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1952). She has also exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Art, and at Mitsukoshi in Tokyo. Her work is held in the permanent collections of museums nation-wide including of the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York City and the Los Angeles County Museum among others.
Reference:
Who Was Who in American Art 1564-1975: 400 Years of Artists in America, Peter Hastings Falk, Sound View Press 1999, Vol. 2, p. 1752-1753; Les Krantz, American Artists, Illustrated Survey of Leading Contemporary Artists; Elenore Welles, 'Ynez Johnston', Farhat Cultural Center website; et al.
Additional biographical information courtesy of Tobey C. Moss Gallery, West Hollywood:
Ynez Johnston is an architect of fantastic realms. Though she may skirt reality, she never quite eliminates the concrete, merely disguises it. Her idiosyncratic vocabulary of forms derive from a collective cultural history. But references metamorphose into a unique fusion of elements that show no regard for the actual physical world.
Throughout her career, Johnston has experimented with a variety of mediums that include etchings, lithography, oils, watercolor, paper maché, ink dyes, sumi on rice paper and casein. Crucial to her inventive composites are the influences of Mogul and Tibetan artists, Pre-Columbian stone carvings, artists such as William Blake, and the obsessive proclivities of Persian paintings. The melding of sources suggest a line between cubism, European surrealism and the over-all qualities of American abstract expressionism. Her personal evocations of abstract geometry are particularly reminiscent of the fanciful linear styles of Paul Klee and Mark Tobey.
By combining mythic designs with the precepts of modernism, she evokes hybrids of universal forms and familiar landmarks. But they evolve strictly out of Johnson's fertile imagination. . . a synthesis of outer and inner visions. As though spilling out of an overcrowded subconscious, a multitude of geometric forms and shapes transmute into intricate designs. Palace of the Snow Leopard [1971], for example, is dominated by a form that looks like a cross between animal and architecture. The stylized figure bears a conglomeration of colorful designs and symbols. It appears a strange hybrid of a Mayan stylized animal and a Chinese horse. It is pure contrivance.
A fifty-year survey reveals how Johnston's stylistic developments have gone through cycles and mutations. But the vitality of her colors remain prevalent, and certain forms and themes have a continuous life span. The repetition of mythic shapes, particularly a mandala-like form, strengthen the enduring psychological power of ancient myths.
Mythical urban landscapes also remain a constant throughout her oeuvre. In Arabia [1960] her abstract depiction of crowded environs recall the surreal urban representations of Philip Guston. Through time, however, her evocative worlds become denser and more exotic. In Expedition [1989] shapes resemble castles, temples, humans, animals and illusive symbols. I say "resemble" because this is a purely invented world. The use of black against vivid greens, golds and orange create a cohesive bond for the disparate images.
The Green Nile [1998] is replete with familiar Johnston elements. Here again, dazzling colors activate the relationship between man, cities, nature and symbols. Whimsical violet pyramids and middle-eastern architecture suggest cities in the sand. A green diamond-shaped island is set off by a sea of vivid blue, and a bright golden ground provides emphasis for a Mayan-type design. Surrounding shapes, set within fields of orange, red and yellow, evoke a pulsating energy.
The influence of Tibetan tanka paintings and their penchant for borders is reflected in Sailing Around the Horn. Created with ink dyes on canvas and silk, fanciful depictions are set within borders of yellow, aqua and deep turquoise.
Sculptures also show a propensity for hybrids. In the 1992 bronze, The Woman Who Waits by the Sea, Pre-Columbian and Asian influences appear prominently. A stylized woman stands upon a dog-like figure. Both are etched with a sundry amount of designs and figures.
Johnston's horror-vacuii style demands quite a bit of examination. But her amalgamation of images can extend the imagination of the spectator. Enigmatic forms rooted in ambiguous space give the illusion of dream metaphors. Juxtapositions that evoke associative meanings can transport viewers into their own fantasy universes.
- Creator:Ynez Johnston (1920 - 2019, American)
- Creation Year:1964
- Dimensions:Height: 11.5 in (29.21 cm)Width: 17.75 in (45.09 cm)Depth: 0.01 in (0.26 mm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:paper: age-toning; frame: minor toning to mat, minor marks. This piece will ship without glass.
- Gallery Location:Santa Cruz, CA
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU3444387732
Ynez Johnston
Frances Ynez Johnston (May 12, 1920 – 2019) was an American painter, sculptor, printmaker and educator. Her artwork is modernist and abstract with a narrative of imaginative lands or creatures, and often featuring collage. Johnston was born on May 12, 1920, in Berkeley, California. She attended University of California, Berkeley to study with Worth Ryder and received her bachelor of fine arts in 1941. She traveled to Mexico in the early 1940s to continue her studies, returning to Berkeley in 1943, earning her Masters of Fine Arts in 1946. In 1960 she married novelist and poet John Berry. In the years following she produced prints through the Tamarind Lithography Workshop. Johnston started teaching art classes at various universities and colleges in 1950 and ended teaching in 1980.[8] She began at University of California, Berkeley (1950–1951) and then continued her teaching career at Colorado Springs Fine Art Center (1954–1955), Chouinard Art Institute (1956), California State College (1966–1967, 1969, 1973), the University of Jerusalem (1967), and Otis Art Institute of Parsons School of Design (1978–1980). Her work is featured in various permanent collections including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the Spencer Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, Fullerton College, the McNay Art Museum, the University of Michigan Museum of Art, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, and others. Johnston was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1952 for fine art, which allowed her travel to Italy. In 1955–1956 she was awarded the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation grant for painting and printmaking, and was awarded the National Endowment for the Art (NEA) grant in 1976 and 1986. In addition to her intricate prints and paintings, Johnston also created three dimensional pieces in collaboration with her husband and with ceramic sculptor Adam Mekler. Her watercolors, oils and etchings of the 1950s and 1960s were rich with complex imagery, and displayed a disciplined, restrained use of color. In later mixed-media pieces, she examined the tactile qualities of surface. Her paintings incorporated soil, acrylic, dyes, encaustic on cloth, canvas, and raw silk. Composite forms suggest ambiguous architectural, human, animal and plant shapes. Johnston cited Persian and Indian miniatures as influences but also drew inspiration from European abstract artists Matisse, Miro, Klee and Picasso. Ynez Johnston died in 2019 in Los Angeles, California.
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