David Johnson Art
A landscape painter based in New York City and associated with the second generation of Hudson River School painters, David Johnson was noted for his ability to delineate accurate rock formations and foliage. He was especially influenced by the work of Hudson River painters Jasper Francis Cropsey, John Casilear, and John Frederick Kensett. He also painted an occasional still life.
Johnson was born and raised in New York City, but little else is known about his early life. He studied briefly with Cropsey but said that his best teacher was nature, which he utilized in his paintings from his frequent trips to the Hudson River Valley, especially the areas around West Point and Fort Putnam.
Johnson painted his first nature studies in 1849, and that year first received public acclaim for his work exhibited at the National Academy of Design and the American Art Union. In 1860, he was elected a full Academician.
Primarily Johnson painted in the Northeast, doing views of the Catskills, Adirondacks, Lake George, the Hudson River and the White Mountains, where he worked in the early 1850s with a colony of artists around North Conway. His early landscapes tend to be panoramas, rock studies, or forest interiors. In the middle of his career, he adopted a more luminist style and did tranquil marine scenes such as flowing rivers, and his later work showed Tonalist influence of the French Barbizon School with pastoral subjects. It is written that this period in his career was not much distinguished and that "Influenced by the barbizon style, his work became monotonous and less articulate." (Michael David Zellman, 300 Years of American Art)
In the 1880s, Johnson’s reputation began to diminish, and by the time he died his work was virtually unappreciated. Many years later, it was re-discovered by scholars who appreciated his great skills of naturalist documentation.
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(Biography provided by Saratoga Fine Art)
Mid-19th Century Hudson River School David Johnson Art
Canvas, Oil
Late 19th Century Hudson River School David Johnson Art
Paper, Watercolor
19th Century American Realist David Johnson Art
Paper, Pencil
Mid-19th Century American Realist David Johnson Art
Oil, Board
1950s American Realist David Johnson Art
Linen, Oil, Board
Late 19th Century Hudson River School David Johnson Art
Canvas, Oil
Early 1900s Hudson River School David Johnson Art
Oil Crayon, Laid Paper
1870s Hudson River School David Johnson Art
Canvas, Oil
1870s Hudson River School David Johnson Art
Paper, Oil, Board
19th Century Hudson River School David Johnson Art
Canvas, Oil
Early 20th Century Hudson River School David Johnson Art
Watercolor
1880s Hudson River School David Johnson Art
Paper, Gouache, Cardboard
1920s American Realist David Johnson Art
Paper, Pencil
1970s American Realist David Johnson Art
Canvas, Oil, Board
Mid-19th Century Hudson River School David Johnson Art
Paper, Oil, Board
1990s American Realist David Johnson Art
Archival Paper, Graphite
Late 19th Century David Johnson Art
Oil, Board
Late 19th Century Hudson River School David Johnson Art
Paper, Pencil