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David Johnson Landscape Paintings

American, 1827-1908

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)

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Artist: David Johnson
Oil landscape of Autumn Forest
By David Johnson
Located in Fredericksburg, VA
This Hudson River School autumn landscape is done by the famed artist David Johnson. He studied at the national Academy of Design in New York. He was best known for the development o...
Category

Mid-19th Century Hudson River School David Johnson Landscape Paintings

Materials

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Hudson River School Watercolor Titled Fishing the Creek
By David Johnson
Located in Fredericksburg, VA
David Johnson was born in 1827 in New York City. Beginning in 1845, he studied for two years in the antique school of the National Academy of Design. His classmates and colleagues in...
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Late 19th Century Hudson River School David Johnson Landscape Paintings

Materials

Paper, Watercolor

Figure in a Landscape
By David Johnson
Located in New York, NY
Signed (at lower right): DJ [monogram]; (on back): David Johnson 1865
Category

Mid-19th Century American Realist David Johnson Landscape Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

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David Johnson landscape paintings for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic David Johnson landscape paintings available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by David Johnson in paint, oil paint, board and more. Not every interior allows for large David Johnson landscape paintings, so small editions measuring 6 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Jasper Francis Cropsey, William Bradford, and John Frederick Kensett. David Johnson landscape paintings prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $4,500 and tops out at $175,000, while the average work can sell for $55,000.

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