Background
Frances Benjamin Johnston was born in 1864 in Grafton, West Virginia, United States.
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- Photos
- Works
Frances Benjamin Johnston
Edit ProfileEducation
After attending Notre-Dame Convent, Govanston, Maryland, she studied painting and drawing at the Académie Julien, Paris (1883-85), then at the Art Students League in Washington, D.C.
Career
Johnston first worked as a magazine correspondent, ca. 1889, illustrating her articles first with her drawings, then later with her photographs. Her many commissions included photographing the Washington, D.C., school system for the Paris Exposition of 1900, Admiral Dewey's victorious return from Manila (in Naples), construction of the New Theatre in New York (1909), the architecture of Fredericksburg, Virginia, and its environs (1927) and numerous important buildings and homes of wealth. In the early 1890s she opened a portrait studio in Washington, D.C., and around the turn of the century took on a partner for a few years, Mattie Edward Hewitt. Johnston was the unofficial White House photographer through the administrations of Cleveland, Harrison, McKinley, Roosevelt and Taft. She also traveled widely and continued to write for such
publications as Lester’s Magazine and Town and Country.
Achievements
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PUBLICATIONS Books: A Talent for Detail, Pete Daniel & Raymond Smock, 1974; The Hampton Album, Lincoln Kirstein, 1966; The Early Architecture of Georgia, w/Frederick Doveton Nichols, 1957; The Dwellings of Colonial America, Thomas Tileston Waterman, 1950; The Mansions of Virginia, 1706-1776, T. T. Waterman, 1945; The Early Architecture of North Carolina, w/T. T. Waterman, 1941.
Membership
The photographer was an out-of-town member of the New York Camera Club and an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects (1945).
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
Ann Tucker in The Woman's Eye notes: "Even if her photographs were not as beautiful as they unquestionably are, her careful, expansive documentation of the events and customs of her day would be invaluable to historians."
Connections
- employer:
- Thomas William Smillie
- Partner:
- Mattie Edward Hewitt
Frances Benjamin Johnston served an apprenticeship with Dr. Thomas William Smillie, director of the Smithsonian Institution's Photography Division.
Around the turn of the century Frances Benjamin Johnston took on a partner for a few years, Mattie Edward Hewitt.
Education
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1883 - 1885
Career
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1889
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1890