2003.304: Vincent Series #4
Paintings
This object does not yet have a description.
Identification and Creation
- Object Number
- 2003.304
- People
-
Lester Johnson, American (Minneapolis, Minn. 1919-2010 Westhampton, New York)
- Title
- Vincent Series #4
- Classification
- Paintings
- Work Type
- painting
- Date
- 2001
- Places
- Creation Place: North America, United States
- Culture
- American
- Persistent Link
- https://hvrd.art/o/70196
Physical Descriptions
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 111.8 x 152.4 cm (44 x 60 in.)
- Inscriptions and Marks
-
- Signed: l.r. Lester Johnson (script)
Provenance
- Recorded Ownership History
-
Lillian Heidenberg, New York, Gift from the artist.
Acquisition and Rights
- Credit Line
- Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Lillian Heidenberg
- Accession Year
- 2003
- Object Number
- 2003.304
- Division
- Modern and Contemporary Art
- Contact
- am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu
- Permissions
-
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Descriptions
- Description
- Landscape-format painting depicting a group of striding figures, the principal one distinguished by a Yankees baseball cap and a Van Gogh t-shirt.
- Commentary
- For more than 50 years Lester Johnson has been an important presence in American painting, both as a teacher (at Yale, 1964-91) and as a primary exponent of figurative expressionism (showing at Zabriskie Gallery from 1955-61 and at Martha Jackson Gallery from 1962-75). Known in the 1950s and 60s for dark, thickly painted figures of hatted men alone or in strict rows, he embraced a brighter palette and happier subjects in 1972, turning to groups of young men and women moving and dancing through generalized urban spaces, a mode he has maintained to the present. Johnson has always been a maverick, refusing first the abstraction of Abstract Expressionism and then the appropriations of Pop Art, steadfast in his commitment to the high-modern project of an autonomous, non-illustrative painting of modern life.
Verification Level
This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Modern and Contemporary Art at am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu