Robert Johnson

Key facts

Movement

• Realism

1. 1911Born Robert Leroy Johnson on 8 May in Hazlehurst, Mississippi. Spent his early childhood in Memphis, Tennessee, where he attended the Carnes Avenue Colored School.
2. 1930Began learning guitar seriously at age 19 in Hazlehurst, Mississippi, under the tutelage of Ike Zimmerman, after earlier exposure to older bluesmen Willie Brown and Charley Patton in the Delta.
3. 1936Recorded his first session on 23 November in San Antonio, Texas, at age 25, producing songs including "Cross Road Blues" and "Terraplane Blues" for producer Don Law.
4. 1937Recorded a second session in Dallas, Texas, at age 26, yielding "Love in Vain", "Hell Hound on My Trail" and "Me and the Devil Blues". He recorded 29 songs in total across both sessions.
5. 1938Died on 16 August near Greenwood, Mississippi, at age 27. The circumstances of his death remain disputed and have contributed to his near-mythic status in blues history.
6. 1961Columbia Records released "King of the Delta Blues Singers" posthumously, transforming Johnson's reputation. He was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986.

• What is Robert Johnson's most famous work?+

  It is difficult to name a single "most famous" work by Robert Johnson, as his output was varied. Between 1955 and 1959, Johnson created what he termed "combines". These works defied easy categorisation, existing somewhere between painting and sculpture. He incorporated everyday objects; examples include a stuffed goat, a bed, or tyres. These "combines" demonstrate Johnson's experimental approach to materials. Earlier, Johnson experimented with photographic blueprints between 1949 and 1951. In 1951, he had his first solo exhibition at the Betty Parsons Gallery in New York. Around the same time, in 1951-52, he produced all-black and all-white paintings. In 1953, he began a series of all-red paintings. One such work, Red Painting (1953), features a layered surface of newspaper and cloth covered in shades of red paint. Johnson also erased a de Kooning drawing in 1953, a gesture that has become well known. He designed sets and costumes for Merce Cunningham's dance company and for Paul Taylor.
• What should I know about Robert Johnson's prints?+

  Robert Johnson's prints are usually sold as limited editions. The artist determines the number of prints in an edition, not the medium. Most printmakers limit their editions. The edition number is written on the bottom left margin of the print, in pencil, as a fraction; the print's individual number above the total edition size (for example, 12/25 means it is the twelfth print of 25). The print's title is written in the centre, and the artist's signature on the right. Some artists also create a separate set of 'artist's proofs', typically ten percent of the edition, marked 'AP' after the numbering. The Professional Art Dealers Association of Canada defines an original print as conceived and executed solely as a print, usually in a numbered edition, and signed by the artist. Each print is individually inked and pulled; it is a multi-original medium. The numbering accounts for the number of prints in the edition.
• What style or movement did Robert Johnson belong to?+

  Realism has appeared in European art since classical times. It is a recurring theme; when previous anti-naturalistic styles have seemed artificial, artists have moved away from realism and towards fantasy. Whenever realism has appeared, it has taken its character from the period. Terms such as ‘naturalism’ or ‘verism’ have also been used. In the 17th century, there were three main kinds of realism: Spanish polychrome sculpture (carved and painted wood), Caravaggism, and Dutch painting. All three emphasised the exact rendering of surface appearances. Realism does not necessarily imply the logical reconstruction of spatial relationships and proportions. In California, after the Second World War, Formalist Realism emerged. This style was based on Cézanne’s principles of order, volumetric form, and structure. Artists working in still life painting who adhered to Formalist Realism did not wholly escape the influence of abstraction in their treatment of space and organisation. Some reclaimed symbolic, allegorical, and narrative content, anticipating the Neorealists of the 1980s and 1990s.
• What techniques or materials did Robert Johnson use?+

  Robert Johnson uses artist-quality oil paints. For painting surfaces, he uses gessoed MDF, primed canvas stuck to MDF board, and primed canvas. He favours cotton canvas with a fine weave, primed with three coats of acrylic gesso primer. Johnson finds it rewarding to prime and stretch his own canvases, as it guarantees the quality he wants and focuses his thoughts before painting. Johnson uses filberts and flats, ranging from small to large hog hair brushes. He avoids synthetic brushes because they lack the springy resistance of hog hair against the canvas. He prefers well-worn hog hair brushes, as their bluntness allows a broader use of oil paint and prevents excessively edgy marks.
• What was Robert Johnson known for?+

  Realism was a recurring theme in European art, going back to classical times. It has often alternated with periods of fantasy, as artists reacted against what they saw as artificial styles. In the 17th century, three main types of realism appeared: Spanish polychrome sculpture, Caravaggism, and Dutch painting. All three emphasised the careful rendering of surface appearances. The Realist movement developed in France around the mid-19th century. Empiricism and positivism were on the rise, and Realist artists believed the contemporary world was the only "real" subject. They focused on people and events of their own time, rejecting historical, mythological, and religious subjects. Gustave Courbet was a leading figure; he used the term "Realism" when exhibiting his own works. Realists scrutinised their environment, painting ordinary subjects, such as working-class labourers and peasants. They presented these scenes on a scale that implied parity with historical painting. Jean-François Millet depicted French country life. Honoré Daumier, a painter and printmaker, was a defender of the urban working class.
• When did Robert Johnson live and work?+

  Roy Fox Lichtenstein was born in Manhattan on 27 October 1923. He spent his childhood on the Upper West Side. Lichtenstein showed an early interest in drawing and science, designing model aeroplanes and listening to radio shows. He attended Saturday morning watercolour classes at Parsons School of Design in 1937. In 1940, he began studying fine arts at Ohio State University, taking drawing classes with Hoyt L. Sherman. His studies were interrupted in February 1943 when he was drafted into the U.S. Army. After discharge in 1946, he returned to Ohio State University, completing his degree and joining the Fine Arts department as an instructor. Lichtenstein moved to Cleveland in autumn 1951, working various jobs while continuing to paint and exhibit. He moved to 1863 Crawford Street in Cleveland in 1954. By September 1957, he had taken a position as assistant professor of art at the State University of New York at Oswego. In 1960, he resigned from the State University of New York and accepted a position as assistant professor of art at Douglass College.
• Where can I see Robert Johnson's work?+

  To view works similar to Robert Johnson's, you might visit museums with significant Art Deco collections. Several institutions in the United States hold relevant pieces, including the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art in Winter Park, Florida; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; the Minneapolis Institute of Arts; the Museum of Modern Art, also in New York; the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond; and the Wolfsonian at Florida International University in Miami Beach. In Canada, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto may have relevant holdings. In the United Kingdom, consider the Bakelite Museum in Williton; the Brighton Museum & Art Gallery; the Geffrye Museum in London; the Manchester Art Gallery; the National Museums of Scotland, Royal Museum, in Edinburgh; and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.
• Where was Robert Johnson from?+

  Robert Rauschenberg was born Milton Rauschenberg on 22 October 1925, in Port Arthur, Texas. Later, in the 1940s, he became known as Bob. Before serving in the Navy from 1942 to 1945, he briefly studied pharmacology at the University of Texas at Austin. After his military service, he attended the Kansas City Art Institute from 1947 to early 1948 under the G.I. Bill. He then travelled to Paris and enrolled at the Académie Julian. In the autumn of 1948, Rauschenberg returned to the United States to study with Josef Albers at Black Mountain College, near Asheville, North Carolina; he continued to attend intermittently through 1952. While taking classes at the Art Students League, New York, from 1949 to 1951, Rauschenberg was offered his first solo exhibition at the Betty Parsons Gallery. From the autumn of 1952 to the spring of 1953, he travelled to Europe and North Africa with Cy Twombly, whom he had met at the Art Students League. During his travels, Rauschenberg worked on a series of small collages, hanging assemblages, and small boxes filled with found elements, which he exhibited in Rome and Florence. Later in life, Rauschenberg resided in New York and Captiva, an island off the Florida coast.
• Who did Robert Johnson influence?+

  Robert Johnson was a blues musician. It is difficult to isolate the work of particular artists when considering formative influences between art forms, since these typically affect whole groups and generations working in different media. The effects of jazz and blues are tied to distinct aesthetics. Artists interested in African art made a connection between these art forms and jazz music in terms of the impulses they sought. Others, concerned with modernism and urbanity, interpreted the sounds of jazz music as analogous to their experience of the modern city. The painter Joan Mitchell stated that she "tried to take from everybody". The arrangement of images in her mind responded to the needs of her art. Ingres, for instance, briefly meant something to her because de Kooning had drawn upon Ingres' work, and she upon that of de Kooning. More important to her were the paintings of Kandinsky, Matisse, Mondrian, Gorky, and de Kooning himself. She was also inspired by Bach and blues musician Snooky Pryor. Jackson Pollock was fond of jazz and would listen to it while working. Parallels have been drawn between the colour, pattern, and spontaneity of his paintings and jazz improvisation.
• Who was Robert Johnson?+

  William H. Johnson (1901-1970) was an African American artist. Born in Florence, South Carolina, he demonstrated an early interest in art. Johnson moved to New York City, and then later to Europe, to develop his skills as a painter. During the 1930s, Johnson worked in an Expressionist style. These pictures employed curving lines to distort the image. This approach did not find an audience in Europe, so he went back to the United States, but success eluded him there too. Johnson returned to Europe and developed a new, so-called "primitive" style. These works used brighter colours and appeared flatter, with less three-dimensional depth than his earlier paintings. He may have been influenced by folk art, especially the colourful quilts made by African American women. After another move to New York, and then briefly to South Carolina, Johnson adopted this style to depict the history and culture of African Americans. Many of his pictures portray Southern life. Despite the quality of his output, Johnson did not receive much public recognition during his lifetime. Recognition came just before his death when, in 1966, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., agreed to house his entire life’s work.
• Why are Robert Johnson's works important today?+

  Romare Bearden's art remains important because of its powerful synthesis of artistic technique and social commentary. Bearden, drawing on Cubist methods, created works that are both abstract and deeply resonant with artistic and social history. His depictions of Harlemites and tenant farmers, set in abstract scenes, express the struggles of a people confronting the fragmenting effects of American social processes. Bearden incorporated elements of African sculpture into his figures, directing attention to the very real experiences of a community. His abstract interiors serve as settings for concrete life under oppressive conditions. The poetry of the blues is a recurring theme, projected through synthetic forms that are tragicomic and poetic. Trains, conjure women, and rituals of rebirth and dying appear as symbols of continuity within the African American community. Bearden's art offers a harsh, yet eloquent, vision of humanity's resilience.