Lot 2039
WILLIAM HENRY JOHNSON
AMERICAN, 1901-1970
JITTERBUGS II, ca. 1941
Screenprint on newsprint
Verso label: FO - 304 / JITTERBUGS II / William H. Johnson / A; verso on dust paper: Harmon Foundation label and inventory number: A. FO-304 /JITTERBUGS II / WILLIAM H. JOHNSON
This work is one of three known silkscreens on newsprint of Jitterbugs II (SAAM acc. nos: 1971.134 and 1971.135)
Catalogue note:
William Johnson was an integral member of the Harlem Renaissance, the African American intellectual and cultural revival that emerged in New York City in the 1920s. Johnson learned screenprinting at the Works Progress Administration's Harlem Community Art Center (HCAC). He created his vibrant Jitterbugs series while teaching classes at HCAC from around 1940 to 1942. Johnson's screenprints captured aspects of modern Black life, with the Jitterbugs series celebrating dancing and Jazz music. "Jazz to me," wrote Langston Hughes, "is one of the inherent expressions of Negro life in America ... Let the blare of Negro jazz bands and the bellowing voice of Bessie Smith singing Blues penetrate the closed ears of the colored near-intellectuals until they learn and perhaps understand." (Powell, Richard J., et al. The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism. Edited by Denise Murrell, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2024. P. 18)
"By almost any standard, William H. Johnson (1901-1970) can be considered a major American artist. He produced hundreds of works in a virtuosic, eclectic career that spanned several decades as well as several continents. It was not until very recently, however, that his work began to receive the attention it deserves.
Born in South Carolina to a poor African-American family, Johnson moved to New York at age seventeen. Working a variety of jobs, he saved enough money to pay for an art education at the prestigious National Academy of Design. His mastery of the academy's rigorous standards gained him both numerous awards and the respect of his teachers and fellow students.
Johnson spent the late 1920s in France, absorbing the lessons of modernism. As a result, his work became more expressive and emotional. During this same period, he met and fell in love with Danish artist Holcha Krake, whom he married in 1930. The couple spent most of the '30s in Scandinavia, where Johnson's interest in primitivism and folk art began to have a noticeable impact on his work.
Returning with Holcha to the U.S. in 1938, Johnson immersed himself in the traditions of Afro-America, producing work characterized by its stunning, eloquent, folk art simplicity. A Greenwich Village resident, he became a familiar, if somewhat aloof, figure on the New York art scene. He was also a well-established part of the African-American artistic community at a time when most black artists were still riding the crest of the Harlem Renaissance.
Although Johnson enjoyed a certain degree of success as an artist in this country and abroad, financial security remained elusive. Following his wife's death in 1944, Johnson's physical and mental health declined dramatically. In a tragic and drawn-out conclusion to a life of immense creativity, Johnson spent his last twenty-three years in a state hospital on Long Island. By the time of his death in 1970, he had slipped into obscurity. After his death, his entire life's work was almost disposed of to save storage fees, but it was rescued by friends at the last moment." (Source Smithsonian American Art Museum online)
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Provenance:
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The Harmon Foundation, New York; acquired from the above Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Younger, New York and by descent to the present owner
Dimensions:
- Sight 15 x 12 in. (38.1 x 30.5 cm.); Full sheet: 17 x 14 1/4 in. (43.2 x 36.2 cm.), Frame: 25 x 19 in. (63.5 x 48.3 cm.) Artist Name:
- WILLIAM HENRY JOHNSON Medium:
- Screenprint on newsprint Condition:
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