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Lester Johnson Paintings

American, 1919-2010

A New York artist, known as a second-generation Abstract Expressionist, Lester Johnson was born to a large Lutheran family in Minneapolis. He studied at the Minneapolis School of Art and the St. Paul Art School. There, he was introduced to Hans Hofmann's teaching approach, particularly the push and pull effects of form and color by St. Paul teachers Alexander Masley and Cameron Booth, both of whom had studied with Hofmann in Munich. After further study at the Chicago Art Institute, Johnson moved to New York City in 1947 and became one of the first downtown loft-dwellers. He shared a lower East Side studio with Larry Rivers and attended some of Hofmann's New York classes. Rents were cheap, but Johnson was broke much of the time as he tried to support his painting through a variety of part-time jobs, including teaching art. In 1950, he and realist figurative painter Philip Pearlstein shared studio space. Lester's wife, Jo, had introduced the two artists at a time when she and Pearlstein were studying art history at New York University.

Johnson's various studios, on the Bowery and elsewhere, were always one flight up with a view of Manhattan's active street life. No wonder, for over 50 years, street scenes have been a dominant part of his art. Johnson adopted the working techniques of action painting, which meant he used a great deal of paint. A tube of oil paint might be expended in seconds as he, like Pollock, physically projected himself into the work. The images that Johnson produced were not decorative, but stubbornly confrontational, oversize, brooding, thickly encrusted, scarred surfaces that were alive with recognizable objects and figures. Even today, few realize how radical it was for Johnson to depict a recognizable subject in an adamantly pro-abstract-expressionist climate. Sculptor George Segal recalled, "The Abstract Expressionists were legislating any reference to the physical world totally out of art. This was outrageous to us." The rebellion came naturally to Lester Johnson, and he remained tenaciously outside the mainstream. Nonetheless, he produced a body of work that influenced several generations of younger painters and confounded an art establishment in need of neat categorization. He remains one of the few painters whose work holds significance for both abstract and figurative artists. Johnson's animated men and women, with all their nervous energy, yield themselves only gradually to analysis and will no doubt be reinterpreted for many years to come.

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Artist: Lester Johnson
“Green twins”
By Lester Johnson
Located in Warren, NJ
Lester Johnson original oil on canvas “Green Twins” very large. in good condition measures 60x47. buyer is responsible for all additional shipping charges
Category

20th Century Lester Johnson Paintings

Materials

Oil

"Untitled", Inked Profile, Museum Glass, Custom Frame, Mixed Media, India Ink
By Lester Johnson
Located in Detroit, MI
SALE ONE WEEK ONLY “Untitled” painted in India Ink of two heads was done during what has been call Lester Johnson’s Dark Paintings of the 1960s. In 2013 John Yau wrote with much insight about that period of Johnson’s work - “Lester Johnson (1919-2010) was an innovative figurative painter who has never quite fit into any of the accepted narratives of postwar American art, and that alone makes his work worthy of a longer look. The 1960s was an explosively turbulent era marked by assassinations, race riots, space flights, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Beatles’ and Rolling Stones’ first American tours, and the rapidly escalating Vietnam War. Everyone was wary and on edge. Meanwhile, in the New York art world, all eyes were fixated on the rise and triumph of Pop Art, Minimalism and Color Field painting. Johnson was one of the few artists that attuned to the dismay that everyone was feeling during the violent and schizophrenic time, the sense that it could all come crashing down. However, his work was never overtly political or didactic. While his dark, brooding, monochromatic paintings of anonymous men gained a small and loyal following, they also became part of that largely invisible history of a time when New York was a tough scary and exciting place to be. More than fifty years after they were made, Johnson’s Dark Paintings continue to retain a coarseness that we associate with gestural Abstract Expressionism and Jean Dubuffet’s anti-psychological, anti-personal portraits incorporating sand and gravel. One sees in them the antecedents of Joyce Pensato’s gestural exaggerations of Groucho Marx, Homer Simpson and Minnie Mouse. While Pensato brings an infectious humor to her work, Johnson was more somber. I cannot help but think that both these artists chose their bedraggled subjects out of empathy and a trace of identification.” Lester Johnson, was born in 1919 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He attended Minneapolis School of Art, where he studied under Alexander Masley who was a former student of Hans Hofmann. Johnson continued his artistic career in New York City where he opened his first studio on 6th and Avenue A. His neighbor there was fellow painter Wolf Kahn. During his time there he would share a loft with Larry Rivers and married the art historian Josephine Valenti. In 1961 he briefly taught at Ohio State University before returning to New York City to share a studio with Philip Pearlstein. Jack Tworkov would invite Johnson to teach at Yale, an offer that Lester Johnson would accept and spend the rest of his life in Connecticut. Johnson passed away in 2010. Johnson's work has been exhibited in the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, the Wadsworth Atheneum, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, The Walker Art Center, the Yale University Art Gallery, the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Chrysler Museum of Art, the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Museum of Art, the Rhode Island School of Design, the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. This work has been framed inside of a custom frame with museum glass...
Category

1960s Abstract Expressionist Lester Johnson Paintings

Materials

India Ink, Mixed Media

Head with Plant
By Lester Johnson
Located in New York, NY
Lester Johnson "Head with Plant" 1959 oil on paper. Early figurative expressionist painting on paper. Nicely framed.
Category

1950s Expressionist Lester Johnson Paintings

Materials

Paper, Oil

3 Crouching Figures #1
By Lester Johnson
Located in New York, NY
Ink and spray enamel on paper. Signed "Lester Johnson" and dated "1968" lower right recto. Provenance: Martha Jackson Gallery
Category

1960s Lester Johnson Paintings

Materials

Paper, Ink, Spray Paint

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Lester Johnson paintings for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Lester Johnson paintings available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by Lester Johnson in ink, paint, paper and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the Expressionist style. Not every interior allows for large Lester Johnson paintings, so small editions measuring 26 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Heinrich Richter (b.1884), Joseph Glasco, and Arnold Weber. Lester Johnson paintings prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $7,200 and tops out at $9,600, while the average work can sell for $9,000.

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