SARGENT JOHNSON (1888 - 1967) Untitled (Profile Design).
Glazed ceramic tile, circa 1936-38. 153x153x6 mm; 6x6x¼ inches. Signed in the glaze, lower right.
Provenance: estate of Anthony Cromwell Hill, Cambridge, MA; private collection, Massachusetts.
This distinctive design epitomizes Sargent Johnson's unique vision combining modern design with forms from African art in the late 1930s. Johnson used the same Gladding "Hermosa" brand tile for his large-scale tile mosaic at the San Francisco Aquatic Park, a joint project of Federal Art Project of the WPA and the City of San Francisco. Begun in 1936, it opened in 1939; today it is known as the San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park. Johnson also drew a similar abstracted profile in his 1938 lithograph Lenox Avenue; the profile appears again on an enameled steel tile of his from 1950.
