Sargent Claude Johnson

Name: Sargent Claude Johnson | The Huntington
Start: Sat, Feb 17 - Mon, May 20 2024
Location: The Huntington

Exhibitions

Feb. 17–May 20, 2024 | This exhibition of 43 works is dedicated to the work of Sargent Claude Johnson, the California artist whose uplifting portrayals of people of color made him the West Coast’s key connection to the Harlem Renaissance.

The sweeping exhibition of Johnson’s powerful works spans the Great Depression to the Civil Rights Movement and includes masks, sculptures, and monumental public commissions. It will be the first exhibition devoted to Johnson in over 25 years.

On view will be The Huntington’s Head of a Boy (ca. 1928) and monumental carved redwood Organ Screen (1933–34), which was created for the auditorium of the California School for the Blind in Berkeley, California. In this exhibition, the screen—which had been out of public view from 1980 to 2011, when The Huntington acquired it—will be reunited with the other parts of Johnson’s California School for the Blind commission for the first time in over four decades.

Johnson’s work speaks volumes about the fragility of our shared cultural heritage and the critical role that institutions like The Huntington play in safeguarding this heritage for future generations. With this exhibition, The Huntington is making the full range of Johnson's work accessible to the artists, researchers, and audiences of today.

People stand in a gallery looking at artwork.

A person stands in a gallery looking at artwork.

Sculptures on display in a glass case in a gallery.

A large carved wood panel on a gallery wall.

California School for the Blind Commission

In 1933, Sargent Johnson began a monumental architectural installation for the California School for the Blind in Berkeley. It was commissioned by the federally sponsored Public Works of Art Project—part of the New Deal. Johnson carved and decorated large redwood sculptures in a dramatic Art Deco style that were installed in the school’s auditorium, where students staged musical and theatrical performances.

When the school moved to a new campus, the surviving pieces were dispersed. Now belonging to four institutions—The Huntington, the California School for the Blind, the African American Museum and Library at Oakland, and UC Berkeley—the various parts of the commission were reunited for the first time in over four decades.

Sargent Claude Johnson

California School for the Blind Commission

Exhibition Catalog

Audio Tour

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