'Street Musicians' by William H. Johnson, silk screen from 1939-1940
William Henry Johnson (Florence, South Carolina, March 18, 1901 - Central Islip, 1970) was an African American artist from the United States. He was a painter and graphic artist, nowadays famous for his prints in a powerful folk style. biography
Johnson studied art in New York and Provincetown. He also lived in Europe, where he was strongly influenced by German expressionism, which worked through his thirties in the woods. He also made relief prints. The subjects of his work were, in those years, landscapes, nudes and figures. In 1939 he returned to America, where he also made screenings in Harlem, New York. In these colorful prints, Afro-Americans mostly figure and different works show 'black' jazz musicians.
In 1944 his Danish wife, Holche Krake, died and Johnson was tormented by sadness. In 1946 he went to Denmark to be with his wife's family. Shortly afterwards, he returned sickly to America: he had incurred syphilis. He was admitted to the Central Islip Psychiatric Hospital, where he spent the rest of his life. In 1956 he stopped making art. Just before his death in 1970, he donated all his work to the museum, now the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Externe link
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