Edwin Boyd Johnson

{{short description|American painter, designer, muralist and photographer}}

{{Infobox artist

| name = Edwin Boyd Johnson

| image = Photo of Edwin Boyd Johnson.jpg

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| birth_date = {{Birth year|1904}}

| birth_place = Watertown, Tennessee

| death_date = {{Death year and age|1968|1904}}

| death_place = Nashville, Tennessee

| nationality =

| education = School of the Art Institute of Chicago, National Academy of Design

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File:Air Mail by Edwin Boyd Johnson, 1937.jpg, a fresco painted by Johnson in 1937]]

Edwin Boyd Johnson (November 4, 1904 – 1968) was an American painter, designer, muralist and photographer.

Edwin Boyd Johnson was born on November 4, 1904, in Watertown, Tennessee,. Not long thereafter, the family moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where he attended grade and high school.{{cite web |title=Edwin Boyd Johnson |url=https://www.askart.com/artist_bio/Edwin_Boyd_Johnson/108858/Edwin_Boyd_Johnson.aspx |website=AskArt |access-date=6 November 2022}} After graduating, he enrolled in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1925-1930). He also studied at the National Academy of Design in New York City. The Bryan Lathrop Foreign Traveling Scholarship of $1500 (1931){{cite news|title=Art Institute Students Win Prizes at Show |last=Jewett |first=Eleanor |newspaper=Chicago Tribune |date=June 13, 1931}} enabled him to study fresco painting at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna, the Atelier de Fresque of Paris, and the Ecole Egyptienne des Beaux Arts in Alexandria, Egypt.

He was a member of the Chicago Society of Artists, and during the 1930s and early 1940s, he participated in many of their exhibits.{{Cite web|url=https://www.artic.edu/exhibitions/history|title=Art Institute of Chicago|website=The Art Institute of Chicago|date=3 February 2024 }} He was the recipient of several awards, among them the Joseph N. Eisendrath Prize for "Nude" in 1938 and, in 1940, the William M.R. French Memorial Gold Medal from the Art Institute Alumni Association for his painting "Mother and Child".{{cite news|title=Chicago and NY Divide Art Honors|newspaper=Oakland Tribune|date=29 December 1940}} As a participant in the government's Alaskan project, he painted pictures of that state to promote protection of the wilderness.{{cite book|last=Brinkley|first=Douglas|title=The quiet world saving Alaska's wilderness kingdom, 1879-1960|year=2011|publisher=Harper|location=New York|isbn=9780062035332|page=315|edition=1st}} One of those, "Mt. Kimball", hangs in the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center.{{cite book|last=Woodward|first=Kesler E.|title=Painting in the North: Alaskan art in the Anchorage Museum of History and Art|year=1993|publisher=Univ. of Washington Press|location=Seattle [u.a.]|isbn=9780295973197|page=103}}{{Cite web |url=http://www.anchoragemuseum.org/galleries/GalleryViewer2.aspx?incGal=1&cID=3&LayoutID=1&pageIndex=2&pageSize=8 |title=Anchorage Museum - Online Gallery |access-date=2013-06-12 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130629084656/http://www.anchoragemuseum.org/galleries/GalleryViewer2.aspx?incGal=1&cID=3&LayoutID=1&pageIndex=2&pageSize=8 |archive-date=2013-06-29 |url-status=dead }}

While Johnson painted in both water colors and oils, he is best known for his murals, which were funded by the WPA Federal Art Project. These include the recently restored Airmail, in the Melrose Park Library (Chicago, 1937),{{Cite web|url=http://www.wpamurals.com/illinois.htm|title=Illinois New Deal Art | WPAmurals.com|access-date=2013-06-12|archive-date=2013-06-29|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130629084720/http://www.wpamurals.com/illinois.htm|url-status=dead}}{{cite book|last=Marbella|first=Fidencio|title=Melrose Park|year=2009|publisher=Arcadia Pub.|location=Charleston, SC|isbn=9780738560939|page=127|author2=Flanagan, Margaret}} The Old Days, in the Tuscola, Illinois, post office (1941), People of the Soil in Dickson, Tennessee, which, although photographed for the 1996 book Tennessee Post Office Murals, is no longer open to view.{{cite book|last=Hull|first=Howard|title=Tennessee Post Office murals|year=1996|publisher=Overmountain Press|location=Johnson City, Tenn.|isbn=9781570720307|page=54. 57}}{{cite web |title=Dickson, TN New Deal Art |url=http://wpamurals.org/dickson.htm |website=New Deal Art During the Great Depression |access-date=6 November 2022}} and the City Hall mural in Sioux Falls, SD (1936).{{cite book|title=The WPA Guide to South Dakota |first=John E. |last=Miller |publisher=Minnesota Historical Society |year=2006 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qLQO_w31U3wC&q=Edwin+Boyd+Johnson |page=156 |isbn=9780873515528}}

He was an honorary member of the United States Armed Forces in World War II.{{Cite web|url=https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth183315/m1/9/|title=Catalogue of the Twenty-Fourth Annual Exhibition of the Southern States Art League|first=Dallas Museum of Fine|last=Arts|date=June 1, 1944|website=24th Annual Exhibition of the Southern States Art League, May 7–June 4, 1944, Dallas, Texas}}

After the war he took up residence in Mexico City, where he turned his artistic focus to photography.{{cite journal|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z14zAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA217 |journal=Popular Photography |date=December 1951 |title=Prize Winner in the Photography 1951 International Picture Contest (Black and White) |pages=127 and 212}}

He died in 1968 in Nashville.

{{commons category|Edwin Boyd Johnson}}

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