?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 70,000 - $ 100,000
WILLIAM H. JOHNSON (1901 -1970) Flowers in a Blue and White Vase.
Oil on canvas, circa 1933-34. 470x350 mm; 18 5/8x13 3/4 inches.
Provenance: from the artist to Niels and Helga Ejsing, c. 1934; thence by descent in their family until 1996; thence to the current owner. Helga Ejsing (1903-1990) was the cousin of William H. Johnson's wife, Holcha Krake. Helga married Niels Ejsing in May 1934 and the couple received this painting as a wedding gift from Mr. and Mrs. William H. Johnson.
This beautiful oil is a great example of the early, modern still lifes of William H. Johnson, painted in Denmark in the early 1930s. After graduation from the National Academy of Design and a stint in Provincetown, Johnson left New York to pursue his painting career in Europe, living and working in Paris and Cagnes-sur-Mer. After a year's return to New York and South Carolina in 1930, he left for Europe again, this time to Kerteminde, Denmark. He travelled throughout Northern Europe, embracing the modern school of both painting and printmaking there.
In such paintings, Johnson incorporated lessons learned from studying the works of Cézanne, Soutine and Van Gogh, with the modern directness of his own vision. Though traditional subjects, his still lifes are unflinching, Expressionist works that pushed the genre further than any other artist at the time, with the possible exception of Emil Nolde. These paintings further established Johnson as a major figure in 20th Century American Art while he was still living abroad. Very few of Johnson's paintings from this time were sold in the United States; some like this were given to friends in Northern Europe in the early 1930s.
