William H. Johnson was an African-American artist best known for his paintings and prints of landscapes and portraits. Johnson evolved through several styles during his career, influenced by Impressionism, Chaïm Soutine, and naïve folk art. “My aim is to express in a natural way what I feel, what is in me, both rhythmically and spiritually, all that which in time has been saved up in my family of primitiveness and tradition, and which is now concentrated in me,” he once explained. Born William Henry Johnson on March 18, 1901 in Florence, SC, he moved to New York with ambitions of becoming a cartoonist at the age of 17. However, his teacher at the National Academy of Design, Charles Webster Hawthorne, encouraged him to pursue painting instead of illustration. In 1926, Hawthorne raised money for Johnson to study abroad in France. Over the following decade, the artist met his wife the Danish textile artist Holcha Krake, and traveled around Europe and North Africa. Settling with his wife in Kerteminde, Denmark and then Svolvær, Norway, Johnson produced a number of works reflecting the natural beauty he lived amidst. Returning to the United States in 1938, the artist worked for the WPA in New York and began painting in a consciously naïve style. With the death of his wife in 1944, he underwent a mental breakdown. Though he returned to Denmark again, complications related to syphilis began affecting his mental health. Tragically, Johnson was institutionalized the last 23 years of his life, and died on April 13, 1970 in Central Islip State Hospital, NY. Today, his works are held in the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., the Art Institute of Chicago, and The Museum of Modern Art in New York, among others.