Background
Johnson, Frank Tenney was born on June 26, 1874 in on ranch near Big Grove. Pottawattamie Company, Iowa, United States. Son of Abner Morse and Cordelia Rebecca (Tenney) Johnson.
Johnson, Frank Tenney was born on June 26, 1874 in on ranch near Big Grove. Pottawattamie Company, Iowa, United States. Son of Abner Morse and Cordelia Rebecca (Tenney) Johnson.
He attended Oconomowoc High School in Oconomowoc. In 1893, he enrolled in the Milwaukee School of Art (absorbed by Milwaukee State Normal School in 1913), where he studied with Richard Lorenz, a well-known painter of western subjects.
Somewhere on the Range is an example of Johnson"s moonlight technique. To paint his paintings he used knives, fingers and brushes. Johnson"s mother died in December 1886, and the family moved to Wisconsin.
In 1895, Johnson moved to New York City where he studied with John Henry Twachtman at the Art Students League of New New York
In his early career, he worked primarily as an illustrator. He began working for Field & Stream magazine in 1904.
In addition to Field & Stream, he contributed to Cosmopolitan and Harpers Weekly magazines, and illustrated the Western novels of Zane Grey. He lived on a ranch in Colorado for a while, later he went southwest to work on painting Native Americans.
In 1920, he moved to 22 Champion Place in Alhambra, California where he shared a studio with Clyde Forsythe.
At this point Johnson"s easel paintings became more popular than his illustrations so he concentrated in this medium. Together Johnson and Forsythe founded the Biltmore Art Gallery at the Biltmore Hotel. Between 1931 and 1939, he spent much of his time at his studio in Cody, Wyoming, just outside Yellowstone National Park.
Many of his paintings were done there from studies inside the park.
Johnson died from spinal meningitis in 1939 in Pasadena, California.
Mason.
Married Vinnie Reeve Francis, December 31, 1896.