Art is a journey into the most unknown thing of all - oneself. Nobody knows his own frontiers… I don’t think I’d ever want to take a road if I knew where it led.

Louis Kahan
William H. Johnson V (Motive: Midnight Sun in Lofoten) http://americanart.si.edu/education/johnson/toc.html William Henry Johnson (March 18, 1901–1970) was an African American painter born in Florence, South Carolina, and is becoming more widely recognized as one of the greatest American artists of the 20th Century. As his style evolved from realism to expressionism to a powerful folk style (for which he is best known), his work always evokes transitory and sublime sensations, that have been often mimicked but never matched. Without question, he has widened the perimeter of how the Negro historical experience will be remembered and how it will defined in the future.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Johnson_%28artist%29)    William H. JohnsonChildren Playing London Bridge, c. 1942 With the threat of war looming over Europe in the late 1930s, black American expatriate William H. Johnson, a prolific artist whose style had been greatly influenced by European Expressionism, returned to the United States. Upon his return to America in 1938, Johnson entered into a new stylistic phase typified by bright colors and simplified, heavily outlined forms, an approach that would be the hallmark of his work until he stopped painting in 1946. In addition to stylistic developments, Johnson’s focus shifted to characterizations of black life, both rural and urban, and to the depiction of religious themes using black figures…(http://www.driskellcenter.umd.edu/narratives/exhibition/sec3/john_w_03.htm)
Mosques, Tunis William H. Johnson Graphic Arts-PrintDate: 1932
Lom Kirke, Norway William H. Johnson, born Florence, SC 1901-died Central Islip, NY 1970 Graphic Arts-PrintDate: ca. 1935-1938
Chalets by Jostedal Glacier William H. Johnson, born Florence, SC 1901-died Central Islip, NY 1970Graphic Arts-PrintDate: ca. 1935-1938
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