Showing posts with label abstract painting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label abstract painting. Show all posts
Saturday, November 9, 2024
Hans Hofmann's Mixed Messages, a 1990 article by Wolf Kahn (1927-2020)
I posted this a few years ago on the occasion of Wolf Kahn's passing at 92 years of age. This article he wrote about Hans Hofmann for the October, 1990 Art in America really taught me something important. This article had a strong impact on me when I read it in Sam Francis's studio in Palo Alto, CA just weeks after leaving NYC in the fall of 1990. I had studied at the Parsons graduate painting program founded by Paul Resika, the second generation of the Hofmann School Wolf writes about. Two years later I studied with Wolf in New Mexico at the Santa Fe Institute of Fine Arts. Hope you enjoy the article. (If you click on the photos you'll get a high res image that is readable.) Wolf made wonderful contributions to the art world and to art history. He'll be sorely missed for his unique and inspired color. The great photos in this article are courtesy of one of Hofmann's other students, Albert Kresch.
Tuesday, June 25, 2024
New Painting - "Pink Chair," 2022-2024 36x24 inches
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Pink Chair (Race Point), 2024, 36x24 inches, oil on canvas. © 2024 Mitchell Johnson.
I’ve been interested in the beach for as long as I can remember. It took a while to realize that what was intriguing me is the way man-made color separates from the backdrop of sky, water and sand. Even without the strong light of a sunny day, the dreamy space at the beach is unlike any other. Perhaps that’s what calls so many people to the seaside.
When I include umbrellas, towels or chairs in a composition, I’m turning them into paintings, I'm using them to talk about painterly space. As Deborah Butterfield put it so well on the occasion of her new exhibit of sculptures: "P.S. these are not horses".
P.S. these are not beach chairs.
As much as a painting might begin referencing a chair right in front of me, or a photo I carefully arranged, the chairs in the paintings never really exist. The Pink Chair in this post was in fact a blue chair I saw on Cape Cod and was able to draw and paint from life. Then in the studio, the color of the stripes kept changing until the stripes were completely covered and painted dull pink. The dull pink chair sat around the studio for months, sometimes it was turned to the wall, sometimes it was staring at me from across the room. Finally while mixing an orange for a new painting, a voice in my head sent me to get the painting and quickly I reworked the stripes finally achieving the right combination of clarity and surprise in the colors.
In 2012, the writer Chris Busa, described this process in an article for Provincetown Arts:
“If many of Johnson’s paintings are titled after the places that inspired them, no such places actually exist. Each one is a collage of compressed intimacies spread out over the months it takes to paint them. He has done what Edwin Dickinson called “Premier Coup”, in which a painting is completed outdoors in one blow. Yet his typical practice is to hold a painting for several months, or more, in the studio, to see if a painting stands the test of repeated looking, often involving the process of memory revision, where a succession of impressions gained over weeks or months is expressed as continuous flow.”
Wednesday, February 21, 2024
Tuesday, December 7, 2021
Four Mitchell Johnson Paintings in the December 5, 2021 New York Times Magazine
Four Mitchell Johnson paintings, "Paris (Green)" on page 19 of the December 5, 2021 New York Times Magazine.
Request a digital catalog of available work by emailing:
mitchell.catalog@gmail.com
Follow on instagram: mitchell_johnson_artist
Read a recent interview at, Painting Perceptions, or listen to an interview on the podcast, I Like Your Work.
See complete bibliography at www.mitchelljohnson.com.
Thursday, September 2, 2021
Mitchell Johnson exhibit "Sixteen Years in Truro," Truro Center For the Arts at Castle Hill 2021
You can see some of the exhibit here in Artforum Spotlight.
Great article at Artscope Magazine in the September issue.
Catalog available at Amazon.
The reception is Thursday Sept 9, 2021, 4-6 pm. Gallery hours are M-F, 9-5. Weekends by appointment. Email mitchell.catalog@gmail for appointments.
Friday, August 27, 2021
Monday, May 24, 2021
Back cover of New York Times Magazine May 16, 2021
Mitchell Johnson "Color Continuum: Selected Paintings 1988-2021" is on view at Pamela Walsh Gallery in Palo Alto, May 15-June 26, 2021. You can read a new interview with Mitchell at Painting Perceptions.
Friday, May 21, 2021
Saturday, April 11, 2020
Monday, March 16, 2020
Mitchell Johnson Ad #120 NY Times Magazine February 9, 2020 Page 19
Request a digital catalog of available work by emailing:mitchell.catalog@gmail.com
Follow on instagram: mitchell_johnson_artist
Read a recent interview at, Painting Perceptions, or listen to an interview on the podcast, I Like Your Work.
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
Mitchell Johnson Ad #106 New York Times Magazine full page September 15, 2019
Here's an article about the 555 California Street Exhibit
Request an electronic catalog of available paintings: mitchell.catalog@gmail.com
Request an electronic catalog of available paintings: mitchell.catalog@gmail.com
Sunday, August 11, 2019
Mitchell Johnson Large Paintings at 555 California Street in San Francisco Aug 19-Oct 25, 2019
Mitchell Johnson Large Paintings at 555 California Street in San Francisco has been changed to Aug 19-Oct 25, 2019. This exhibit is in the massive lobby of San Francisco's iconic skyscraper, 555 California Street. The paintings can be viewed regular business hours, M-F, but also through the glass windows 24/7. Request a price list and digital catalog by emailing: mitchell.catalog@gmail.com. The ad below appeared in the NY Times Magazine on page 15, Aug 11, 2019 with the incorrect show dates.
Sunday, August 4, 2019
Mitchell Johnson Painting "Truro (Nine Pickets)" in NY Times Magazine August 4, 2019 (Ad #102)
Request an electronic catalog of available paintings: mitchell.catalog@gmail.com
Ad #101 Studio photo NY Times Magazine July 28, 2019
Ad #100 studio photo in NY Times Magazine July 21, 2019
Ad#99 Full page ad inside front cover of NY Times Magazine July 7, 2019
Ad #98 "From 1750 Taylor" in the NY Times Magazine June 23, 2019
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