John Seward Johnson II
John Seward Johnson II, also known as J. Seward Johnson Jr. and Seward Johnson, was an American artist known for his trompe l'oeil painted bronze statues. He was a grandson of Robert Wood Johnson I, the co-founder of Johnson & Johnson and Colonel Thomas Melville Dill of Bermuda.
He created life-size bronze statues, castings of living people, depicting them engaged in day-to-day activities. A large staff of technicians usually did the actual fabrication of works he designed. He was the founder of Grounds For Sculpture, a sculpture park and museum located in Hamilton Township, Mercer County, New Jersey.
Early life
Johnson was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey on April 16, 1930. His father was John Seward Johnson I, and his mother was Ruth Dill, the sister of actress Diana Dill, making him a first cousin of actor Michael Douglas. Johnson grew up with five siblings: Mary Lea Johnson Richards, Elaine Johnson, Diana Melville Johnson, Jennifer Underwood Johnson, and James Loring "Jimmy" Johnson. His parents divorced around 1937, and his father remarried two years later, producing his only brother Jimmy Johnson, making him an uncle to film director Jamie Johnson.Johnson attended Forman School for dyslexics and the University of Maine, where he majored in poultry husbandry, but did not graduate. Johnson also served four years in the United States Navy during the Korean War.
Career
Johnson worked for Johnson & Johnson until he was fired by his uncle Robert Wood Johnson II, in 1962.Johnson maintained a studio in Princeton, New Jersey and then another at the former New Jersey Fairgrounds in Mercerville, New Jersey.
His early artistic efforts focused on painting, after which he turned to sculpture in 1968. Examples of his statues include:
- Spring, a bronze dedicated in 1979, set in the Crim Dell Woods section of the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia. Other examples of Spring castings include the East Brunswick, New Jersey public library and the Fitton Center for Creative Arts in Hamilton, Ohio.
- The Awakening, his largest and most dramatic work, a five-part statue that depicts a giant trying to free himself from underground. The sculpture was located at Hains Point in Washington, DC for nearly twenty-eight years while still owned by Johnson. It was moved to Prince George's County, Maryland in February 2008, and an attempt was made by the new curator to correct some of the scale distortions of the original installation by altering some implied underground connections and placing the parts in different relationships to each other.
- Double Check, a statue of a businessman checking his attaché case, formerly located in Liberty Plaza Park across an intersection from the World Trade Center, as part of the public space required by a zoning variance granted to the developer of the adjoining skyscraper. Widely published photographs of the debris-battered and dust-covered statue, were taken following the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001. The statue, scars and all, was returned to a prominent corner of the restored and renamed Zuccotti Park in 2006, again open to the public. The statue has periodically been adorned by tourists, pranksters and even Occupy Wall Street protesters.
- Hitchhiker, a statue at Hofstra University, at the California Avenue gate, near a road leading away from campus.
- Allow Me , a statue of man holding an umbrella, in Pioneer Courthouse Square in Portland, Oregon.
- Competition, A sculpture of Julie Wier, Fairview Heights, Illinois. Chosen to represent the spirit of the people of St. Louis as winner of the "picture yourself as a work of art" contest. Dedicated on June 16, 1984 unsigned St. Louis County Library in St. Louis, Missouri.
- Waiting, at Australia Square, Sydney, Australia
- Déjeuner Déjà Vu, at Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton Township, Mercer County, New Jersey, a facility founded by Johnson, is a three-dimensional restaging of Édouard Manet's painting, Le déjeuner sur l'herbe
- Copyright Infringement, at Grounds for Sculpture is a sculpture that he named to flaunt his disdain for criticism of his copies of the iconic works of fine art artists with international recognition, and represents the fine artist Edouard Manet, whose work he has copied.
- Unconditional Surrender, a spokesperson for Johnson has stated that this series is based on a photograph that is in the public domain, Kissing the War Goodbye, by Victor Jorgensen, however, the Jorgensen photographic image does not extend low enough to include the lower legs and shoes of the subjects, revealed in Alfred Eisenstaedt's famous photograph, V–J day in Times Square, that are represented identically in the statue. A spokesperson for Life has called it a copyright infringement of the latter image. Nonetheless, the first version, a bronze statue in life-size, was placed on temporary exhibition during the 2005 anniversary of V-J Day at the Times Square Information Center near where the original photographs were taken in Manhattan.
- Big Sister, just outside the Pig 'N' Whistle pub and Michael's Restaurant at 123 Eagle Street, part of the Celebrating the Familiar series
- First Ride, a statue of a father helping his young daughter learn to ride a bike, in Carmel, Indiana.
- Newspaper Reader, at the entrance to Steinman Park, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
- Forever Marilyn, a, 17-ton representation of Marilyn Monroe standing over a gusty subway grate in her appearance in The Seven Year Itch. Until 2012, the sculpture was located at Pioneer Court in Chicago, where it attracted many visitors and some controversy. It was moved to downtown Palm Springs, California in 2012 and in July 2013 P.S. Resorts announced that The Sculpture Foundation, owners of Forever Marilyn, would be moving it to New Jersey for a 2014 exhibit honoring Johnson at the Grounds For Sculpture.
Johnson's works were selected by the United States Information Agency to represent the freedoms of the United States in a public and private partnership enterprise representation sponsored by General Motors and many other US corporations at the World EXPO celebration in Seville, Spain during 1992.
Criticism
Johnson's work was labeled as "kitsch" in a 1984 article by an art professor and critic at Princeton University, who explained its rejection as he was commenting on a controversy raging about the work in New Haven, Connecticut.His 2003 show at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Beyond the Frame: Impressionism Revisited, which presented his statues imitating famous Impressionist paintings, was a success with audiences, but was panned nationally acknowledged art critics such as Blake Gopnik writing for the Washington Post and drew strong criticism from curators at other museums about a prominent museum of fine art presenting an exhibit of his work.
Philanthropy
Johnson was the chairman and CEO of The Atlantic Foundation, the foundation created by his father John Seward Johnson I in 1963. Johnson created the Johnson Atelier Technical Institute of Sculpture, an educational, nonprofit casting and fabrication facility in 1974 as a means of fostering young sculptors' talents, while creating a foundry designed to construct his statues that is so well-equipped and staffed that it is chosen by many renowned sculptors. Educational programs at the Atelier ceased in 2004. The Johnson Atelier now operates as a division of The Sculpture Foundation, and Johnson continued to make his sculpture at the facility but casting is often performed off premises, with some of his larger works being cast in the Peoples Republic of China.He also founded an organization named "The Sculpture Foundation", to promote his works. In 1987, he published Celebrating the Familiar: The Sculpture of J. Seward Johnson, Jr.
Under Johnson's direction, The Atlantic Foundation purchased the old New Jersey Fairgrounds in Hamilton, New Jersey and in 1992 founded the Grounds For Sculpture to display work completed at the Johnson Atelier and other outdoor exhibitions. In 2000 park operations were transferred to a new public charity with the same intent that continues to operate the park.
He was president of the International Sculpture Center of Hamilton, New Jersey, which publishes a magazine out of offices in Washington, DC.
Johnson also was the president of a large oceanographic research institution in Florida founded by his father, the publisher of a science magazine, Johnson and his wife funded the construction of The Joyce and Seward Johnson Theater for the Theater for the New City, an Off-Broadway theater in New York City.
Personal life
Johnson was excluded from his father's will, which left the bulk of his fortune to Barbara Piasecka Johnson, his father's wife and former chambermaid. He and his siblings sued on grounds that their father wasn't mentally competent at the time he signed the will. It was settled out of court, and the children were granted about 12% of the fortune.Johnson was formerly married to Barbara Kline. She often engaged in extramarital affairs in their home, driving Johnson to attempt suicide. In 1965, he acknowledged paternity to Jenia Anne "Cookie" Johnson to speed up the divorce process. Years later, Johnson's family had a legal battle regarding Cookie Johnson's eligibility for a share in the Johnson & Johnson fortune. The court ruled in favor of Cookie.
Johnson later married Joyce Horton, a novelist. They had two children, John Seward Johnson III and actress Clelia Constance Johnson, who is credited as "India Blake."
Johnson died from cancer at his home in Key West, Florida on March 10, 2020. He was 89.