Description:

Ynez Johnston
California, (1920 - 2019)
abstract cityscape, 1958
watercolor and ink on paper
Signed and dated lower right.

Biography from LewAllen Galleries: Ynez Johnston (1920-2019): Ynez Johnston's work is featured in various permanent collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Spencer Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, among others. In 1951, her work was featured in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. Subsequently, she received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, first place in watercolor at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1952, and Fresno Art Museum's Distinguished Artist Award in 1992.

Characterized by intricate compositions, Ynez Johnston's watercolors, oils and etchings are rich with complex imagery. Melding her own visual language from both modern and ancient art, Johnson constructs her mythical landscapes and figures in a variety of media, including oil, casein, watercolor, ceramic, wood, and combinations thereof. Of the fantastic imagery that continuously emerges in her work, Johnston has stated, "Some images, themes, mind-materials seem to recur almost obsessively in my work. These appear to be composite shapes: the running together of architectural, landscape and animal and human forms. Pervading such images is a kind of medieval worldview, with overtones of the mythic, the legendary, fairy tales…"

After her studies at the University of California, she traveled extensively through Italy, Mexico, India, and Nepal, further broadening her artistic vocabulary. In the early 1940s, Johnston traveled to Mexico to continue her studies but returned to Berkeley in 1943 eventually earning a Masters of Fine Arts in 1946. In 1949, she summered in Paris and then relocated to the Los Angeles area in the fall. Finding herself without a studio or press, Leonard Edmondson, a friend from college, opened his studio to her. She experimented with woodcut and began to do sculpture in 1950.

In later mixed-media pieces, she examined the tactile qualities of surface. Her paintings incorporated soil, acrylic, dyes, and encaustic on cloth, canvas, and raw silk. Composite forms suggest ambiguous architectural, human, animal and plant shapes. Johnston cited Persian and Indian miniatures as influences but also drew inspiration from European abstract artists Matisse, Miro, Klee and Picasso.

  • Dimensions: 14 1/2"H x 10 3/8"W (Sight), 12 1/2"H x 20 1/2"W (Frame)
  • Medium: watercolor and ink on paper

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April 29, 2023 11:00 AM EDT
Indianapolis, IN, US

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