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129

Johnson, Frank Tenney (1874 - 1939)

Currency:USD Category:Art Start Price:100,000.00 USD Estimated At:100,000.00 - 150,000.00 USD
Johnson, Frank Tenney (1874 - 1939)
<strong>Johnson, Frank Tenney </strong>
(1874 - 1939)

<strong>Into the Back Country, 1927</strong>

oil on canvas
18 x 24 inches
signed and dated lower left: <i>F. Tenney Johnson / 1927</i>

Frank Tenney Johnson was born in southwestern Iowa on June 26, 1874, to a family that traced its lineage in America back to the Mayflower. When Johnson was 14 his family relocated to Milwaukee, where the young artist eventually left high school to concentrate his energies on his art. He apprenticed at a commercial engraving firm and studied under F.W. Heine and Richard Lorenz—the former a specialist in equine subjects, the latter a one-time Texas Ranger and
painter of Western themes. With the aid of a small inheritance, Johnson moved to New York in 1895, where he enrolled in drawing classes at the Art Students League taught by John Henry Twachtman and others. He returned to Milwaukee in 1896 and married Vinnie Reeve Francis in
December of that year. The couple returned to New York in 1902, and Johnson studied at the New York School of Art, where his instructors included Robert Henri and William Merritt Chase.

Although the Midwest of Johnson’s youth was on the edge of the Western frontier, Johnson had never seen the far West until he undertook a trip to Colorado and New Mexico in 1904. With his
passage paid by a commission from <i>Field and Stream</i> magazine, Johnson worked as a cowboy for several months on a ranch in Hayden, Colorado. Frank and Vinnie traveled west with increasing frequency from the teens through the 1920s. In 1925, the couple purchased a home in Alhambra, California, and, in 1931, a second home near Cody, Wyoming. Johnson’s work sold well and he showed consistently on both coasts throughout the 1920s and ‘30s, frequently traveling across the country by car and train to his New York, Wyoming, and California studios. Johnson was particularly celebrated for his nocturne paintings, which achieved a provocative balance between subdued lighting effects and a richly atmospheric luminosity. In late December of 1939, the Johnsons were in Alhambra where they were visited by family friends, one of whom—unbeknownst to anyone at the time—was infected with spinal meningitis. Johnson contracted the disease, was soon taken ill, and died on January 1, 1939.

The painting <i>Into the Back Country</i> depicts two mounted men, perhaps prospectors, heading into the wilderness with their camping gear and provisions. Although the location of the scene is not identified, the terrain suggests that it may be set in Wyoming. The painting is composed of wide horizontal bands of foreground, water, mountains, and sky that are offset by the diagonal trail down which the figures are traveling. The primary figure of the lead rider, sitting tall in the saddle, integrates the composition vertically. <i>Into the Back Country</i> was acquired by the current owner as a wedding gift in 1950 from her father’s business partner. The owner’s father, Robert J. Pritchard, and his partner owned Occidental Publishing, a trade journal publishing company based in Los Angeles. Pritchard’s partner had previously worked in the public relations department of the Union Oil Company. It is believed that he met Frank Tenney Johnson during this time and likely acquired the painting directly from the artist.
—DC







Provenance:
Private Collection, California
By gift to the current owner

Literature:
Harold McCracken, <i>The Frank Tenney Johnson Book,</i> Garden City, New York:
Doubleday and Co., 1960
Melissa Webster, <i>Frank Tenney Johnson and the American West,</i> Santa Fe, New
Mexico: Gerald Peters Gallery, 2000
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