Description:

John R. Johnston (American, 1810-1905). Autumn on the River. Oil on canvas, 1885. Signed with year in lower right. A beautiful landscape painting by American artist John R. Johnston depicting a tranquil river surrounded by leafy deciduous trees in hues of green, yellow, and pink before a hazy, gray background. The trees lean out over the water, their meandering branches full of foliage rendered in brief light strokes of varying hues. Clearly a master of lighting, Johnson carefully controlled the natural illumination to lead the viewer's eye across the composition. Size: 34.75" W x 16" H (88.3 cm x 40.6 cm)

John R. Johnston was an American panoramic painter, photographer, and photographic colorist known for his landscape paintings. He has painted many portraits of well-known people, specifically one of Franklin Pierce and one of Andrew Jackson in 1863. Johnston's landscapes were influenced by the Hudson River School. He assisted artists Samuel B. Stockwell and Henry Lewis with their panoramas in the late 1840s. In 1848 he collaborated with Edwin F. Durang on a biblical-themed panorama which was twelve feet wide and 1800 feet long. Johnston toured with this panorama to Louisville and Philadelphia and would deliver speeches on biblical topics along with its showing.

Johnston moved to Baltimore, Maryland in 1856 and worked as both a portrait artist and a photographic colorist. He worked with wet collodion negatives on salted paper. One of his prints from 1857 is titled Dr. Kane’s funeral at Cincinnati March 8th, 1857 who could not be taken because they were all moving and would not stop for Arctic explorer Elisha Kane's funeral. In 1858 he was selected to take a "scenic excursion" over the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company's newly opened Baltimore-to-Wheeling track which formed the basis for many of his later landscapes. He served in the Union army during the American Civil War and was a Colonel in the First Maryland Regiment. However, he wound up in military prison, supposedly because of practical joking, left for Europe upon his release and created a panorama of his trip upon his return.

After returning, Johnston settled in Philadelphia and later Camden, New Jersey, in 1872 where he sometimes called himself Colonel Johnston. While there, he would often socialize with Walt Whitman, having dinner with him nearly every Sunday evening.

Provenance: private southern California, USA collection, acquired in April 2021; ex-Heritage Auctions, Dallas, Texas, USA

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#186346

  • Condition: Signed with year in lower right. Glue lined canvas. Tape lines the sides of the stretcher bar. Under UV exam, two repaired tears stretching the height of the canvas with accompanying inpaint (one is 4 inches from the left edge and the other is 6 inches from the right edge). Scattered areas of inpaint throughout. Craquelure, most apparent in the white clouds. Discolored varnish. Otherwise, nice remaining pigments and mostly clear imagery.

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