American (1944-2009)

Gerald Johnson was an American abstract artist. Johnson was born in Hot Springs, South Dakota, raised in Joplin, Missouri, and graduated from Pittsburgh State University in 1967. After college, he immediately established a studio on Green Street in New York City and took a job as master printer with Steve Poleskie at the famed Chiron Press, where he printed works by artists with whom he would soon forge creative relationships, from Ellsworth Kelly to Ilya Bolotowsky. His work with Bolotowsky—who took over the art department at Black Mountain College after Albers’s departure—began in 1970, when Johnson printed several tondos and diamonds by the elder Bauhaus artist.

“Emphasizing the horizontal & vertical, I was making ‘step paintings’ in 1971. In 1974 I began making sand paintings on the floor. The sand painting I did in 1975 encouraged me to start weaving a rug. I felt the influence of the colors and the geometric patterns used by the native peoples, and Bolotowsy had a connection with the colors & geometry of Mondrian.”

Their conversations about art and transcendence led Johnson to become Bolotowsky’s exclusive printer and studio assistant, with lasting evidence of a productive collaborative relationship. After working 8-10 hours a day with Bolotowsky, Johnson would retire to his own studio, where he made numerous collage studies and finished paintings, nearly all of which remained in his possession until his death in 2009.