Exhibits: Anderson Johnson
Downing-Gross Cultural Arts Center
Newport News, Virginia
Joanne M. Braxton, Ph.D.
Guest Curator
The Guest Curator’s Column
A Labor of Love: Building the Anderson Johnson Gallery
“The Lord told me, ‘Paint some pictures and put them on your porch.’”
Elder Anderson Johnson (1915-1989), Faith Mission, Newport News, Virginia
The son of a sharecropper, eight year old Anderson Johnson was at work hoeing his father’s cornfield when he was struck by a life changing “vision of angels.” Soon thereafter he began to preach and he “taught himself to sing and play music in a highly personal deeply passionate style.” Baptized by Bishop C.M. “Sweet Daddy” Grace, the young man became an attraction on the revival circuit. He also began to draw. In the 1950’s, Johnson broke with Grace and established his Faith Mission at 1224 Ivy Avenue in Newport News, Virginia, covering the walls and ceilings with visionary paintings.
In later years, Elder Johnson gained recognition as one of Virginia’s most prominent folk artists, famous for his portraits of big eyed women, cats, U.S. Presidents, and figures from the Bible. The self taught visionary was also known for his portraits of angels, which abounded in his work.
Although collectors flocked to Faith Mission, located on Ivy Avenue, Elder Johnson saw his art as a “hook” that he could use to bring people to Jesus. At the height of his popularity, Elder Johnson continued to conduct regular Sunday services, to pray and sing spiritual music for his visitors, and to lay his hands on the sick and afflicted. He did these things without the hope or expectation of material gain.
Richard Miller, a New Hampshire art dealer who was then a curator at the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center in Williamsburg, Virginia, shot hours of Johnson on video tape, as did David Levinson, an art history professor at Christopher Newport University. Miller remembered his visit to Faith Mission as being “unexpected and wonderful”. Of Johnson he said, “He literally lived in the midst of his art. His home was a work of art. This was a guy who was really onto something—and he was taking it as far as he could go.” Collectors like Baron and Ellin Gordon and Ann Oppenheimer, President of the Folk Art Society of America agreed with Miller’s assessment, and they helped to place Johnson’s work in shows around the country.
In Virginia alone, Johnson’s work showed in Richmond at the University of Richmond’s Marsh Gallery, in Colonial Williamsburg at the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center, at the Peninsula Fine Arts Center in Newport News, at the Hampton University Museum and at the Meadow Farm Museum in Henrico County. Shy and reclusive, Elder Johnson generally did not attend these shows of his own work, invoking scriptural cautions against haughtiness. “If I would go,” he said at the time of the exhibition at the Peninsula Fine Arts Center, “I would feel that I am exalting myself.”
In 1998, Johnson broke this long time personal tradition and viewed a retrospective exhibit of his work at the Hampton University Museum. Within weeks, he was dead at 82. The show was still hanging. “It’s very sad—and kind of stunning—to hear the news,” said Jeanne Zeidler, director of the museum. “What’s really sad is that people here were just starting to discover and understand his work and his vision.” Although Elder Johnson is represented in exhibition books like the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center’s Flying Free: Twentieth Century Self Taught Art from the Collection of Ellin and Baron Gordon and the New Orleans Museum of Art’s Passionate Visions: Self Taught Artists from 1940 to the Present, there is, at the present time, no single volume devoted to Anderson Johnson and his work. However, I am presently in the process of creating such a volume in my role as guest curator to the Anderson Johnson Gallery, to be located in our own Downing-Gross Cultural Arts Center. Together with a dedicated team of specialists, I have been working on this project for nearly six years, and thousands of woman (and yes—man!) hours have already been expended on this labor of love.
The Anderson Johnson Gallery will be a first of its kind effort. So far as our research has revealed, there has been no such gallery dedicated to the work of a single African American folk artist anywhere in the United States. In the next issue, we will share the plans for the 3500 square foot state of the art gallery, as designed by Mary Kayaselcuk and myself within the renovation and construction plan executed by Planning Management Associates. A future issue will address the ways in which a generous gift from two friends of Reverend Johnson is helping to make his dream of sharing his art with the children of Newport News a reality.
Photographs of Johnson’s Work
A gallery of Johnson’s artwork is available on this site for your viewing pleasure.