Clarence R. Johnson

In 1912, Clarence Johnson came to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts to study painting with Daniel Garber, and their mutual interest and talent soon turned into a great friendship, both becoming painters of the New Hope School of Impressionism. Upon his return from service in World War I and study in France on a Cresson Scholarship, he made his home in Lumberville, where an artist's colony was well-established, and he received substantial recognition there. He had been exhibiting at the Academy since 1917, and his most widely acclaimed painting, Lumberville Lock, was first shown there in 1923. The painting went on to be shown at the Carnegie Institute, the National Academy of Design, and the Art Institute of Chicago, receiving several prestigious awards. His one man show at Dudensing Gallery in New York in 1924 received rave reviews from the New York papers. In the manner of artists of his day, Johnson exhibited his works in large juried salons regularly through the mid-1930s. Johnson stopped painting around 1938, refusing to allow the sale of his work during his lifetime. After his death in 1981, the entire body of his work, which had not been exhibited for nearly 50 years, was shown at the Janet Fleisher Gallery in Philadelphia.

Education and Training
Columbus Art School, Columbus, Ohio
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1912-1917
Independent study, France, 1920

Teachers and Influences
Studied with Daniel Garber, Emil Carlson, and Cecilia Beaux at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Connection to Bucks County
Johnson lived in Lumberville from 1921-1958 and Doylestown from 1921-1981. He is considered part of the New Hope School of Impressionists. According to Frank Bianco, Bianco Gallery, when Clarence Johnson was refused to an annual Phillips' Mill Exhibition, he was so distraught that he stopped painting all together and dedicated the rest of his life to selling antiques in the New Hope area (through 1958).

Colleagues and Affiliations
Daniel Garber and other members of the New Hope School

Major Solo Exhibitions
The Dudensing Gallery, New York, New York, 1924
Janet Fleisher Gallery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1982

Major Group Exhibitions
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1917, 1922, 1923, 1932
Carnegie Institute of Technology, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1924
National Academy of Design, New York, New York, 1925
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1926-1935
The Pennsylvania Impressionists: Painters of the New Hope School, James A. Michener Arts Center, 1990

Major Awards
Cresson Travelling Scholarship, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1917
First Hallgarten Prize, National Academy of Design, New York, 1925
Peabody Prize, Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, 1926
Bronze Medal, International Sesquicentennial Exposition, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1926