A landscape painter based in New York City and associated with the second generation of Hudson River School painters, David Johnson was noted for his ability to delineate accurate rock formations and foliage. He was especially influenced by the work of Hudson River painters Jasper Francis Cropsey, John Casilear, and John Frederick Kensett. He also painted an occasional still life.
Johnson was born and raised in New York City, but little else is known about his early life. He studied briefly with Cropsey but said that his best teacher was nature, which he utilized in his paintings from his frequent trips to the Hudson River Valley, especially the areas around West Point and Fort Putnam.
Johnson painted his first nature studies in 1849, and that year first received public acclaim for his work exhibited at the National Academy of Design and the American Art Union. In 1860, he was elected a full Academician.
Primarily Johnson painted in the Northeast, doing views of the Catskills, Adirondacks, Lake George, the Hudson River and the White Mountains, where he worked in the early 1850s with a colony of artists around North Conway. His early landscapes tend to be panoramas, rock studies, or forest interiors. In the middle of his career, he adopted a more luminist style and did tranquil marine scenes such as flowing rivers, and his later work showed Tonalist influence of the French Barbizon School with pastoral subjects. It is written that this period in his career was not much distinguished and that "Influenced by the barbizon style, his work became monotonous and less articulate." (Michael David Zellman, 300 Years of American Art)
In the 1880s, Johnson’s reputation began to diminish, and by the time he died his work was virtually unappreciated. Many years later, it was re-discovered by scholars who appreciated his great skills of naturalist documentation.
Find original David Johnson paintings on 1stDibs.
(Biography provided by Saratoga Fine Art)
Oil Landscape of Autumn Forest, Hudson River School, Mid-19th Century
By David Johnson
Located in Fredericksburg, VA
This Hudson River School autumn landscape is done by the famed artist David Johnson. He studied at the national Academy of Design in New York. He was best known for the development o...
Canvas, Oil
Hudson River School Watercolor Titled Fishing the Creek
By David Johnson
Located in Fredericksburg, VA
David Johnson was born in 1827 in New York City. Beginning in 1845, he studied for two years in the antique school of the National Academy of Design. His classmates and colleagues in...
Paper, Watercolor
Figure in a Landscape
By David Johnson
Located in New York, NY
Signed (at lower right): DJ [monogram]; (on back): David Johnson 1865
Oil, Board
$4,500
H 14.5 in W 17.5 in D 0.75 in
Charles Partridge Adams Sunset Front Range Colorado Watercolor Landscape
By Charles Partridge Adams
Located in Denver, CO
A luminous early 20th-century watercolor landscape by Charles Partridge Adams depicting a dramatic Colorado sunset along the Front Range, where expansive prairie, a winding creek, an...
Watercolor
Dawn at the River
Located in North Clarendon, VT
Wonderful Hudson River School painting, oil on canvas. Obviously painted by a talented artist, unsigned and a mystery for you to solve. Canvas stamped Edward Dechaux NY. An amazing...
Oil
$9,500
H 9.5 in W 7 in
Dusk Forest Scene, Catskills by Lockwood DeForest (American, 1850-1932)
By Lockwood DeForest
Located in New York, NY
"Dusk Forest Scene, Catskills," 1875 by Hudson River School painter Lockwood DeForest (American, 1850-1932) is oil on artists card-stock and measures 9.5 x 7 inches. The work is signed by DeForest, and dated May 13, 1875 at lower right. The work is framed in an elegant, period appropriate frame, and ready to hang. Lockwood DeForest was born in New York in 1850 to a prominent family. He grew up in Greenwich Village and on Long Island at the family summer estate in Cold Spring Harbor. As was customary for a cultivated family in the Gilded Age, the DeForests made frequent trips abroad. Excursions to the great museums, which were prominent on the DeForests agenda, deepened the young Lockwood's familiarity with European painting and sculpture. Though he had begun drawing and painting somewhat earlier, it was during a visit to Rome in 1868 that nineteen-year-old DeForest first began to study art seriously, taking painting lessons from the Italian landscapist Hermann David Salomon Corrodi (1844–1905). More importantly, on the same trip, Lockwood met one of America’s most celebrated painters, (and his maternal great- uncle by marriage) Frederic Edwin Church (1826–1900), who quickly became his mentor. DeForest accompanied Church on sketching trips around Italy and continued this practice when they both returned to America in 1869. Early on in his career, de Forest made a habit of recording the date and often the place of his oil sketches, as to create a visual diary of his travels. Lockwood’s profession as a landscape painter can be primarily attributed to Frederic E. Church and his belief in the young artist’s talent. DeForest often visited Church in the Hudson River community of Catskill where, in addition to sketching trips and afternoons of painting, he assisted with the architectural drawings and planning of Olana. In 1872, DeForest took a studio at the Tenth Street Studio Building in New York. During these formative years DeForest counted among his friend’s artists such as Sanford Robinson Gifford (1823–80), George Henry Yewell (1830–1923), John Frederick Kensett (1816–72), Jervis McEntee (1828–91), and Walter Launt Palmer (1854–1932). Over the next decade DeForest experienced success as a painter. He exhibited for the first time at the National Academy of Design in 1872, and made two more painting trips abroad, in 1875–76 and 1877–78, traveling to the major continental capitals but also the Middle East and North Africa. His trip to the Middle East and the library at Church’s home, Olana, established his interest in design during his mid-twenties. From about 1878 to 1902, landscape painting was overshadowed by his activities and preoccupation with East Indian architecture and décor, a style that became quite fashionable in late nineteenth century America. From 1879-1883, de Forest founded Associated Artists along with Louis Comfort Tiffany, Candace Wheeler...
Oil, Board
$6,000
H 19 in W 29 in
"Grand Manan" Harrison Bird Brown, Maine Landscape, Hudson River School Seascape
By Harrison Bird Brown
Located in New York, NY
Harrison Bird Brown (1831 - 1915) Grand Manan Oil on canvas 12 x 20 inches Signed with initials lower left Harrison Bird Brown was born in 1831 in Portland, Maine, and is best known for his White Mountain landscapes and marine paintings of Maine's Casco Bay...
Canvas, Oil
$15,000
H 15 in W 25 in
Sunset on the Hudson River by Hermann Simon (American, 1846-1895)
Located in New York, NY
Painted by Hudson River School artist Hermann Simon (1846-1895) , "Sunset on the Hudson River" is oil on canvas, measures 15 x 25 inches, and is signed and dated 1875 at the lower ri...
Canvas, Oil
Distant Horizon
By Edward Moran
Located in Saratoga Springs, NY
Edward Moran (American, 1829 - 1901) Boy with Dog on Dock Oil on canvas Signed lower left 22 x 36 inches Provenance: Sotheby's Sale no. 3255 Oct. 27-28, 1977 Page 58 Price on reques...
Canvas, Oil
$15,000
H 19.5 in W 24.5 in
"Pastoral Landscape, " William Hart, Hudson River School, Cloudy View with Cows
By William Hart
Located in New York, NY
William Hart (1823 - 1894) Pastoral Landscape, 1877 Oil on canvas 9 1/2 x 14 1/2 inches Signed and dated lower left Born in Paisley, Scotland, William Ha...
Canvas, Oil
$23,500
H 19 in W 30 in
On the Hudson, 19th Century Oil on Canvas Landscape Painting, Framed
By John Bunyan Bristol
Located in New York, NY
John Bunyan Bristol (1826-1909) American, Hillsdale, NY - New York, NY Hudson River School Painting “On the Hudson” 19th century Oil on canvas 30 x 19 in. unframed 27 x 39 framed Sig...
Canvas, Oil
$7,500
H 19.5 in W 15.5 in D 1.5 in
“Eastern White Pines, c. 1910”, New England Landscape, Signed Oil Painting
By Charles Warren Eaton
Located in Yardley, PA
“Eastern White Pines, c. 1910” by Charles Warren Eaton (American, 1857-1937). A wonderful example of Eaton’s renowned compositions of Eastern white pine trees in his mature style. A...
Canvas, Oil, Board
$35,000
H 38.5 in W 66 in D 3.5 in
The Steamship Jamestown of the Old Dominion Line, American Marine Painting
By Antonio Jacobsen
Located in Grand Rapids, MI
Antonio Nicolo Gasparo Jacobsen (Danish/American, 1850-1921) Signed: Antonio Jacobsen, 1907 (lower, right) " The Steamship Jamestown of the Old Dominion Line ", 1907 Oil on Board ...
Oil, Board
$5,950
H 17.25 in W 21.75 in D 1.5 in
"Milky Lake, Alps" c. 1867 by Gustavus Frankenstein Mountain Landscape Oil
Located in Yardley, PA
About this work: An important Alpine landscape in the Hudson River School style by German American artist Gustavus Frankenstein (1827-1893) “Milky Lake, Alps” was painted during Fra...
Canvas, Oil
$25,000
H 39 in W 27 in D 2 in
Brooklyn Bridge NYC American Scene Social Realism Mid 20th Century Modern WPA
By Cecil Crosley Bell
Located in New York, NY
Brooklyn Bridge NYC American Scene Social Realism Mid 20th Century Modern WPA Cecil C. Bell (American, 1906-1970) Brookyn Bridge amid the NYC Waterfront 35 ½ x 23 ½ inches Oil on Bo...
Oil, Board
Sold
H 11.75 in W 15.87 in
"Byram Lake, New York" David Johnson, Hudson River School Landscape, Westchester
By David Johnson
Located in New York, NY
David Johnson Byram Lake, New York Monogrammed lower right; signed and titled on the reverse Oil on board 7 3/4 x 11 3/4 inches A landscape painter based in New York City and associ...
Oil, Board
Lake George New York
By David Johnson
Located in Saratoga Springs, NY
Signed lower left & verso. A landscape painter based in New York City and associated with the second generation of Hudson River School painters, David Johnson was noted for his ab...
Oil, Wood Panel
Oak - Lake George
By David Johnson
Located in Saratoga Springs, NY
Signed & dated middle right. A landscape painter based in New York City and associated with the second generation of Hudson River School painters, David Johnson was noted for his ...
Paper, Pencil