Welcome

Welcome to the Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné

The Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné (EJCR) is intended to aid scholars, curators, students, and the general public who are researching not only one of the most important artists of his generation but also a wide variety of cultural and historical topics.

Similar to a printed catalogue raisonné, the EJCR website provides primary information on paintings, drawings, and prints by Eastman Johnson. More than 900 of Johnson’s paintings and more than 400 drawing and prints are organized thematically and catalogued with their titles, dates, media, dimensions, inscriptions, current owners, provenance, exhibition histories, and bibliographies. Many of the entries feature contemporary remarks, quotations from historical sources, examination notes, and opinion letters. Works are related to each other to create meaningful connections that illuminate Johnson’s interests and practices. This information will aid the connoisseurship of Johnson’s work and provide a multifaceted lens for examining the history of American art.

Visitors can create lists of Johnson works on the website, with catalogue information and images, for their future reference and use, and also link to related subjects and articles.

Johnson’s subjects, aside from portraits, include early representations of the Ojibwe Nation in Minnesota Territory; the visual culture of the Civil War; images of Black and white people which avoided stereotypes of the time; mid-century artisans; the celebration of farmers and the agrarian communal ideal; images of the interiority of women; summertime living at the seashore; and the shift in style and content from an earlier moralizing genre painting to subject pictures with an emphasis on the spontaneous brushstroke. His portraits document networks of politicians, businessmen, and patrons, and their families in ways in which they wanted to be represented.