Cafe+William+H.+Johnson

1939-1940 **William H. Johnson** Born: Florence, South Carolina 1901 Died: Central Islip, New York 1970
 * [[image:1967.59.669_1c.jpg link="http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=11583"]] || ==Café==

oil on paperboard 36 1/2 x 28 3/8 in. (92.7 x 72.2 cm.) Smithsonian American Art Museum Gift of the Harmon Foundation 1967.59.669 Smithsonian American Art Museum 2nd Floor, North Wing || Johnson spent decades traveling the world, searching for the authentic spirit of ordinary people from different cultures. In the late 1930s, he found what he was looking for in his own African American community. The strong colors and silhouettes in this painting evoke the African art that black artists and writers had embraced during the Harlem Renaissance. But this affectionate couple also has the fashionable flash of zoot-suiters in the big band era. Above the table, the two figures coolly take in the café scene; below, a tangle of legs and limbs hints at the erotic energy of a night on the town.
 * Exhibition Label:**

In 1944 his wife, Holche Krake, a Danish textile artist, died from breast cancer. To deal with his grief, he took work in a Navy Yard, and in 1946 left for Denmark to be with his wife's family. He soon fell ill himself, from the effects of advanced syphilis, and returned to New York in 1947 to enter the Central Islip State Hospital on Long Island, where he spent the remainder of his life. He stopped painting in 1956 and eventually died in late 1970.
 * Additional Information:**

Before his death he donated all of his work to the National Museum of American Art, now the [|Smithsonian] [|American Art Museum]. A major exhibition of his works, //William H. Johnson’s World on Paper//, was organized and circulated by the [|Smithsonian American Art Museum]. This well received exhibition traveled to the [|Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts].

[|Artist Biography] [|High Resolution Image]
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