William Johnson (artist)

William Johnson (artist)

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. He became a student at the National Academy of Design in New York. 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 be defined in the future.