AT A GLANCE

Johnson, Joshua (also Johnston)

Sex:  Male

Born:  Probably, Baltimore County, Maryland, United States
fl.1795

Died:  Possibly, Maryland, United States
1824

Activity/Profession:  Slave, Painter

3 articles on Johnson, Joshua (also Johnston)

• Johnston, Joshua

  Source: Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Second Edition

  Word Count: 1115     

  African American portrait painter. Born probably in the latter part of the eighteenth century, Johnston lived as a slave in the vicinity of Baltimore, Maryland, until the 1830s. He had three masters, all of Baltimore. The first, General Samuel Smith, was a hero of the American Revolution (1775–1783). Smith served in U.S. president Thomas Jefferson's cabinet as secretary of the navy and later as United States senator from Maryland. The second, General John Stricker, was a hero of the War of 1812. The third, Colonel John Moale, was one of the leading military figures in the regiment that defended Baltimore against the British during the American Revolution. Moale later became a wealthy landlord, judge, and prosperous merchant. One of the three owners encouraged young Johnston to master “doing likenesses,” or portrait ...
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• Johnson, Joshua

  Source: African American National Biography

  Word Count: 1437      Includes:  Further Reading

  (fl. 1795–1824), painter, was probably born in the West Indies. It is now generally believed by scholars of American art and history that Johnson was black and may have come to this country as a young man, probably as a slave. Johnson might be identified as the “negro boy” mentioned in the 1777 will of Captain Robert Polk of Maryland. This boy is thought to have been purchased by Polk's brother-in-law, the noted artist Charles Willson Peale. Stylistic resemblances between the work of Charles Willson Peale and Joshua Johnsonare apparent. Unfortunately, very little documentation on Johnson exists, and identification of his works is accomplished through provenance (mostly oral family tradition), and connoisseurship—observation of technique, subject matter, iconography, and style. ...
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• Johnson, Joshua

  Source: Grove Art Online

  Word Count: 406      Includes:  Bibliography

  (fl c. 1796–1824).

  American painter, perhaps of West Indian birth. He was probably the first significant Afro-American painter and worked primarily in Baltimore, painting portraits for prosperous, middle-class families. His career and his identity as a ‘Free Householder of Colour’ are sketchily documented in city records. Circumstantial evidence suggests that he had once been a slave and had arrived from the West Indies before 1790. More than 80 portraits have been attributed to him. Sarah Ogden Gustin (c.1798–1802; Washington, DC, N.G.A.) is the only signed work and typifies his early style. Though the figure is woodenly rendered and awkwardly seated within a flattened space, the view through a window reveals a painterly landscape and an attempt at atmospheric perspective. Johnson’s early portraits closely resemble compositions by members of Charles Willson Peale’s family, particularly

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