Artist Spotlight: Sargent Claude Johnson

Discover Sargent Claude Johnson, the first Black Modernist artist from the West Coast to gain national acclaim. He made a national impact as part of the Harlem Renaissance, even though he lived in the Bay Area and not in the movement’s center of Harlem in New York City.

Back to Digital Classroom Resources

Artist Sargent Claude Johnson looks at a sculpture inside a studio. Everett Collection.

| Everett Collection/Bridgeman Images.

Overview 

Artist Name: Sargent Claude Johnson

Lived: 1888-1967

Synopsis: Sargent Claude Johnson was the first Black Modernist artist from the West Coast to gain national acclaim.

Johnson’s art made a national impact as part of the Harlem Renaissance (also called the Black Renaissance), even though he lived in California’s Bay Area and not in the movement’s center of Harlem in New York City.

His artistic work stands out because he was skilled in multiple mediums and he embraced Black identity at a time when many popular depictions of Black people were racist. Besides his work as an artist, he was a passionate and dedicated teacher who believed creativity was an essential civic value.

Table of contents heading: Overview 

Video

Join Huntington curators Lauren Cross and Dennis Carr on an exploration of the renowned California Black Renaissance artist Sargent Claude Johnson.

About the Artist

Early Life

Born in 1888, Sargent Claude Johnson was the middle of seven children. His father, Anderson, was a white Swedish American and his mother, Eliza, was a Black woman who was likely born into slavery. Before Johnson was born, his parents moved from Virginia to Boston so they could marry legally. After Anderson’s death, Eliza sought help from her relatives and the Catholic Church to help care for her children. Johnson’s mother’s family worked hard to ensure that he and his siblings received a good education, which was no small feat during the height of the Jim Crow era.

Artistic Style

Influences

Sargent Claude Johnson drew from a wide variety of influences across his long career. Explore his primary influences:

Modernism: Modernism is an art movement from the early 20th century that emphasized experimentation and finding new forms of expression. Industrialization was changing society and daily life at a rapid pace, and Modernist artists attempted to create works that reflected those changes. However, in his Modernist works, Johnson worked to highlight diversity and inclusivity and made artworks that challenged stereotypes, especially when it came to non-white people.

Mexican Modernists and Indigenous Artisans: Johnson traveled to Mexico multiple times between the 1940s and 1960s, twice with other artists through scholarships awarded by the San Francisco Art Association and several other times on his own. His travels through Mexico took him to many cities and states including Mexico City; Puebla; Cuernavaca, Morelos; Veracruz; and Taxco, Guerrero, where he explored museums, archaeological sites, and artists’ studios. In Mexico City, he marveled at the murals by Mexican Modernist muralists Jose Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, and David Alfaro Siqueiros, whom he later had the opportunity to meet in the Palacio de Bellas Artes. He also traveled south to the state of Oaxaca where he explored Zapotec and Mixtec pottery made from barro negro, the area’s black clay. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Johnson was more interested in the contemporary and ancient artistic traditions of rural Mexican populations than in its big cities and major art centers.

The Pacific Rim: The Pacific Rim refers to the coastal regions bordering the Pacific Ocean. In 1915, the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, a world fair, ran for 10 months in the Bay Area of San Francisco. During that time, people commonly thought of the Bay Area as being a central connection from the U.S. to Asia. That same year, Johnson moved to Berkeley and clearly became interested in Asian art. While living in Berkeley, he probably saw Buddhist sculptures that belonged to his Chinese and Japanese neighbors. Some of his early sculptures, including one of his infant daughter, look like Chinese Buddhist works. He also made a sculpture of a young Chinese American girl named Elizabeth Gee, who was a friend of his daughter. Johnson was able to travel to Japan more than once to learn more about Japanese art.