SARGENT CLAUDE JOHNSON: BAY AREA MODERNIST
Sargent Claude Johnson (1888–1967) was a pioneering Bay Area Black modernist artist whose career spanned the Harlem Renaissance to the Civil Rights Movement. Though best known as an award-winning sculptor, Johnson worked in a broad range of media—from painting and printmaking to enamelwork and ceramics, and a wide variety of sculptural media. Johnson’s work drew upon international artistic influences from Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America, and he was among the early generation of Black American artists to travel to Mexico and Japan. Through these connections and a decades-long artistic practice, Johnson actively worked to shape modernism into a diverse and inclusive space, creating art that upended stereotypes and forged new links across time and place. Our speaker is a Forum favorite, Dennis Carr, Chief Curator of American Art at The Huntington Museum.
Image: Sargent Claude Johnson (1888–1967), Chester, 1931, terracotta, SFMOMA, Albert M. Bender Collection, bequest of Albert M. Bender, 41.2978.
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Institution or Organization name - American Decorative Arts Forum