Newly discovered painting an interesting Black History Month find

Sydney Johnson, curator of exhibits for the Missouri State Museum, talks about the painting she
came across created by then-local artist William E. Johnson. Johnson's work was featured in a State
Museum exhibit in the 1960s.
Sydney Johnson, curator of exhibits for the Missouri State Museum, talks about the painting she came across created by then-local artist William E. Johnson. Johnson's work was featured in a State Museum exhibit in the 1960s.

An original oil painting of paleozoic Missouri was uncovered inside the Missouri State Museum's cabinets last summer by Curator of Exhibits Sydney Johnson.

She had only been in the position a few weeks and was exploring the holdings. The original piece is unique because it is neither the norm for modern exhibits nor an accession of the museum.

Rather, the painting is a piece of the museum's own history, Sydney Johnson said.

photo

Gregory Powell.

Following her curiosity, she searched the museum's institutional archive to find a single newspaper article about the donation of the painting by local artist William E. Johnson to Museum Director Don Johnson and a photo of the "Missouri Marble" exhibit.

(None of the Johnsons mentioned in this story are related.)

The painting was the focal point of a display cabinet featuring several stone samples and photographs of mining techniques.

"It showed what the state would have looked like millions of years ago," the curator noted.

The painting's history grew when the curator noticed the artist was a "man of color" and the exhibit was in 1962.

"That piqued my interest, given the social context of the 1960s," she said. "Being a historian, I felt I needed to learn more."

Sydney Johnson's research and the painting recently were featured on the museum's Facebook page in recognition of Black History Month.

William E. Johnson was a renaissance man.

He received only three years of formal art training under James Parkes at Lincoln University. The artist graduated from Lincoln High School in 1928 and Lincoln University in 1932. (His daughter, Teka, also studied art at Lincoln.)

William Johnson's work was reviewed in 1936 by artist Thomas Hart Benton, who was completing his Capitol murals in the House of Representatives Lounge. The famous Missourian "offered to enter one of Johnson's paintings in a Kansas City art exhibit and to advise him on his technique," the April 8, 1962, Sunday News and Tribune reported.

Instead, the Central Missouri artist left that year for New York to tour with a vocal trio, which appeared on the Major Bowes Amateur Hour and performed in New York until 1941.

From 1936-53, William Johnson didn't pick up a paintbrush. After his vocal career, he went into full-time ministry with the Jehovah's Witnesses.

He ministered in Hartford, Connecticut, for two years, then attended the New York Watchtower Missionary School for Gilead. He served three years as a circuit supervisor in the southern states and then nearly a decade as a missionary in Jamaica, where he married his wife in 1956.

After he and his wife, Gloria, returned to Jefferson City, he was an unpaid minister with the local Jefferson City congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses. In 1972, he was appointed the presiding overseer.

By 1962, William Johnson had returned to his painting.

In April of that year, 12 of his oil paintings were on exhibit for a week at Capital Savings and Loan Company, 425 Madison St., where he worked at the time as a custodian.

Among those featured were his "Landscape," which won the popular vote for best work in the April 1962 National Conference of Artists art exhibition at Lincoln University. The bank exhibit also featured "Way of the Earth," which earned him fourth place from the judges in that same exhibition.

Curator Sydney Johnson wondered if the bank exhibit and awards in the spring of 1962 might have led the Missouri State Museum to connect with William Johnson.

The Jefferson City Post Tribune ran the picture of the exchange of the paleozoic-era painting between the artist and the then-museum director three months later.

Interestingly, "Johnson suffered a back injury after making a commitment to do the picture (and) completed the work while encased in a cast from neck to toes."

In the future, the curator said she may pursue having the painting become an accession, which would allow the museum to maintain its integrity and make it more accessible to the public.

"At a time when people of color were not typically employed by the museum, the inclusion of Johnson's work is notable," the curator said.