Background
Born in New York City on May 10, 1827, David Johnson went on to become a skilled landscape artist who led a relatively quiet life. His parents were David and Eliza (Daymon) Johnson.
National Academy of Design
Born in New York City on May 10, 1827, David Johnson went on to become a skilled landscape artist who led a relatively quiet life. His parents were David and Eliza (Daymon) Johnson.
Johnson was essentially a self-taught artist up until 1845, but at the age of eighteen, he ceded to artistic conventions and enrolled at the National Academy of Design.
Under the instruction of mentors John William Casilear, John Frederick Kensett, and Jasper Francis Cropsey, Johnson soon began to paint landscapes of his native New York with a level of skill which enabled him to ride on the coattails of their success.
In 1849, the onset of Johnson’s artistic career was marked with a landscape painting entitled "Hanes Fall, Kauterskill Clove", which was inscribed en verso, “My first study from nature–made in company with J.F. Kensett and J.W. Casilear.” This year was also the first time Johnson began to exhibit his landscapes at the National Academy. His incorporation of a golden palette, carefully observed details, reflective rivers, and framing trees led to his classification as a second-generation member of the Hudson River School.
The 1850s was a period that brought with it a stylistic shift for the artist, and it was evident that “uncompromising clarity and realism became the hallmark Johnson’s art.” He visited New Hampshire for the first time in 1851, and the lure of the rocky terrain would continue to draw Johnson back well into the later years of his life. His exceptional portrayals of rock formations and landscapes did not go unnoticed, and Johnson’s talents were rewarded by the National Academy in 1859, when he was made an Associate member, and again in 1861, when he was elected Academician.
The peak of Johnson’s career occurred in the 1870s; as his painting style became tightly controlled, his brushstrokes were consequently almost imperceptible. In the late 1870s and early 1880s his main effort was to wed the intimate poetry of the Barbizon school with the precisionism and luminism which were almost central to his work.” Up until the mid-1880s, Johnson had successfully kept his finger on the pulse of the art market, and effectively mastered the process of adapting his style to cater to the art world’s current taste.
It was most unfortunate that critics did not champion the more tonal nature of his later works, and an advertisement featured in The New York Times from 1890 gave notice of a public auction of his paintings presented by Ortgies & Company. Such a large surplus of unsold works indicated Johnson may have encountered financial difficulties towards the end of his career; this notion was further supported when Johnson was forced to give up his New York studio in 1904. Only four years later, in 1908, Johnson passed away in his home in Walden, New York.
View of Dresden, Lake George
A Study near Tamworth, New Hampshire
In the White Mountains
Ramapo Hills
Androscoggin River
View of Palisades, Hudson River
Natural Bridge
View on the Androscoggin River, Maine
A Study, Bash Bish Falls
Croquet on the Lawn
Brook Study at Warwick
Afternoon along the Banks of a River
Study for Shark River
The Distant Waterfall
Eagle Cliff, Franconia Notch, New Hampshire
Mount Chocorua, New Hampshire
Schooley's Mountain, New Jersey
Near Noroton, Connecticut
Young Elms
Warwick, Orange County, New York
Lake George
Placid Lake, Aditondacks
Boating on Lake George
Ocean Beach, NJ
Indian Falls
Young Elms
Study of Nature, Dresden, Lake George
Natural Bridge
Study of Wawayanda Lake, Orange Co.
A Lush Summer Landscape
Cascade, Rockland County (Ramapo) NY
On the Waywayanda, Orange County, New York
Scenery at Shelburne, Vermont
Landscape
On the Escopus at Hurley, New York
View rom New Windsor, Hudson River
Sketch of Apple Blossoms with May Flowers
West Cornwall, Connecticut
Study at Ramapo, New York
View from Hyde Park
View of Narragansett Bay near Warwick, Rhode Island
On the Esopus Creek, Ulster County, New York
In the Forest
Phlox
Self Portrait in Colonial Dress
Safely Anchored
Joyceville, Connecticut
Catnip Island, Near Greenwih, CT
Lancaster New Hampshire Farmland
At Larchmont Manor, Long Island Sound, New York
Roadside, Shark River, New Jersey
Study, Pompton, New Jersey
Pear Blossoms
Landscape with House
Upper Twin Lakes in the Colorado Rockies
Hudson River Scene
Looking West, from Dollar Island, Lake George
Study at Orange County, New York
Study of a Cedar
Buck Mountain, Lake George
View from Garrison, West Point, New York
Natural Bridge, Virginia
Passing Storm Clouds
Chestnut Grove, Dashville, New York
Dish of Apples and Quinces
Spring - a Study on the Bronx at Mt. Vernon
Marlborough
House in the Adirondacks
View of Mt. Lafayette, New Hampshire
A Scene in the Bronx, N.Y.
A View on Lake George
The Hudson Riiver from Fort Montgomery
Mount Lafayette, New Hampshire
The Pathway Home
West Farms, the T. H. Faile Esq. Estate
His early work is characterized by carefully constructed landscapes of meticulous realism with high-intensity colors in the tradition of the American Pre-Raphaelites, while later works focused on the effects of light on river landscapes in the Luminist style, or pastoral scenes in a looser, more tonal mode influenced by the Barbizon school.
In 1859 David was elected Associate Membership to the National Academy of Design. Two years later he was elected Academician there. He was also a member of Artists Fund Society.
David Johnson married Marie Louise West on January 20, 1869.