Daniel LaRue Johnson
Sunrise Series 6, 1979
Ink and pastel on paper
30.5 x 22.9 cm
12 x 9 in
Framed: 29.2 x 36.8 x 3.8 cm
11 1/2 x 14 1/2 x 1 1/2 in
12 x 9 in
Framed: 29.2 x 36.8 x 3.8 cm
11 1/2 x 14 1/2 x 1 1/2 in
Daniel Larue Johnson (b. 1938, Los Angeles, CA – d. 2017, New York, USA) has produced a significant and varied body of work that includes paintings, drawings, prints and large-scale...
Daniel Larue Johnson (b. 1938, Los Angeles, CA – d. 2017, New York, USA) has produced a significant and varied body of work that includes paintings, drawings, prints and large-scale sculptures, ranging from Hard Edge abstraction and politically-charged assemblage to Minimalist and Post-Minimalist forms. Johnson received a BFA from the Chouinard Art Institute (now California Institute of the Arts), where he became part of a pioneering community of artists engaging politically and creatively with the Civil Rights movement.
In the early 1960s whilst still living in California, Johnson was making assemblage works – graphic, dioramic constructions of objects, often repainted in black. At this time, which is referred to as his “black box” period, Johnson was part of a pioneering community of artists engaging politically and creatively with the Civil Rights movement. These works question the treatment of civil rights protestors from a personal perspective. In 1964, Johnson was invited by John Weber to participate in an exhibition entitled Boxes at Dwan Gallery, which presented his confrontational assemblages alongside modernists such as Marcel Duchamp and Kurt Schwitters.
In 1965 Johnson was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, the grant allowed him to move to Paris where he studied under Alberto Giacometti. Following Giacometti’s death in 1966, he returned to the United States with his family, settling in New York City. The artist’s return to the US coincided with a shift in the focus of his work. Immersed in New York’s dynamic creative environment, Johnson abandoned his assemblage “black boxes” to instead focus on colourful abstract paintings and minimalist sculptures, more aligned with a New York aesthetic.
Johnson produced the Sunrise Series during a visit to Guadeloupe in the summer of 1979. These works mark a moment of transformation in Johnson’s art, moving away from the hard-edged geometry of his colour-field paintings and minimalist sculptures towards a purer exploration of colour. Johnson has described the way in which this change in direction ‘emanated from […] my visits to the beautiful island of Guadeloupe, French West Indies, with hundreds of new dazzling colors that ultimately led me to Saint Croix […] to discover more beautiful colors.’ This new direction is also consciously rooted in the great tradition of Western colour field painting, which has always been intimately tied to nature and landscape, from Monet to the atmospheric canvases of the Abstract Expressionists.
Rendered in vivid ink and pastel, these intimate works on paper explore the unstable boundary between representation and abstraction, an ongoing theme in Johnson’s work on multiple scales and in different media. These drawings evoke a bright, vibrant summer sunlight – as observed, perhaps, through cracks in window shutters – and yet remain resolutely abstract and minimal: a series of evenly spaced, simple blocks of colour.
In the early 1960s whilst still living in California, Johnson was making assemblage works – graphic, dioramic constructions of objects, often repainted in black. At this time, which is referred to as his “black box” period, Johnson was part of a pioneering community of artists engaging politically and creatively with the Civil Rights movement. These works question the treatment of civil rights protestors from a personal perspective. In 1964, Johnson was invited by John Weber to participate in an exhibition entitled Boxes at Dwan Gallery, which presented his confrontational assemblages alongside modernists such as Marcel Duchamp and Kurt Schwitters.
In 1965 Johnson was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, the grant allowed him to move to Paris where he studied under Alberto Giacometti. Following Giacometti’s death in 1966, he returned to the United States with his family, settling in New York City. The artist’s return to the US coincided with a shift in the focus of his work. Immersed in New York’s dynamic creative environment, Johnson abandoned his assemblage “black boxes” to instead focus on colourful abstract paintings and minimalist sculptures, more aligned with a New York aesthetic.
Johnson produced the Sunrise Series during a visit to Guadeloupe in the summer of 1979. These works mark a moment of transformation in Johnson’s art, moving away from the hard-edged geometry of his colour-field paintings and minimalist sculptures towards a purer exploration of colour. Johnson has described the way in which this change in direction ‘emanated from […] my visits to the beautiful island of Guadeloupe, French West Indies, with hundreds of new dazzling colors that ultimately led me to Saint Croix […] to discover more beautiful colors.’ This new direction is also consciously rooted in the great tradition of Western colour field painting, which has always been intimately tied to nature and landscape, from Monet to the atmospheric canvases of the Abstract Expressionists.
Rendered in vivid ink and pastel, these intimate works on paper explore the unstable boundary between representation and abstraction, an ongoing theme in Johnson’s work on multiple scales and in different media. These drawings evoke a bright, vibrant summer sunlight – as observed, perhaps, through cracks in window shutters – and yet remain resolutely abstract and minimal: a series of evenly spaced, simple blocks of colour.
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