The earliest recorded portrait drawing of a known individual by Johnson is Henry Sewell, done in Augusta, Maine, and dated November 26, 1844. Already in 1844, when Johnson was twenty, this work shows the artist's superb use of charcoal (black chalk) to highlight the lights and shadow that capture the three-dimensionality of his sitter. This talent may have been initiated from the time he worked in a lithography shop in Boston, and also the availability of mezzotints.
The Sewell portrait also shows Johnson’s understanding of anatomy in the sitter’s facial structure. During this period, 1844–1949, Johnson almost always used charcoal (black chalk) for his portraits. Some are half-length portraits including hands, but the majority are heads (and necks) alone. He took about three days to complete a charcoal portrait. The style of the time was to present portraits in oval frames.
See Technical Information on Johnson's Practices for a discussion of charcoal, black chalk, crayon, and pastel. —PH
MacGibeny, 2022: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow commissioned Johnson to draw portraits of himself, his family, and his friends, including essayist, poet, and Trancendentalism leader Ralph Waldo Emerson, after being impressed by Johnson's portraits of his parents, Stephen and Zilpah Longfellow. In his journal entry of January 16, 1846, he wrote, "Went to Portland where I found all pretty well. A young artist of Maine, Mr. Johnson, has taken my father and mother, in every way is excellently made.” On October 22 he wrote, "Johnson’s sketch [sic] of [Longfellow's sisters] Anne and Mary are quite charming. I am delighted with them. He is to take for me all the club. The mutual Admiration Society which I shall hang in the Hall to show people what a fine set of heads they are." Johnson was only 22 years old when he made this drawing. These Longfellow commissions in the late 1840s helped to build Johnson's reputation as a young artist in America before he went to Europe in 1849 to learn to paint.
Edgar French, "An American Portrait Painter of Three Historical Epochs," World's Work, 1906, p. 8317: "Mr. Johnson took great pleasure in this work of drawing the famous Cambridge literary colony, especially in the study of Emerson. Only this year, recalling them, he said of Emerson: 'No one ever impressed me so as being a perfectly spiritual man, in mind, in appearance, and manner. His aspect was gentle and lovely, his talk like an angel—oh, every look, every word, every action was as beautiful as could be conceived. I never met any man like him in that respect. I remember him just as well as if it were a week ago. His beautiful smile—he was a lovely man to be near to. He was a perfect saint—better than that.'
"Three years ago, when the Society of American Authors gave a banquet in New York to commemorate the Emerson Centennial, this portrait was brought from Cambridge and placed opposite the seat reserved for Mr. Johnson at the speakers' table. Unfortunately his failing health prevented his attendance to link the portrait with the living throguh the presence of him who had drawn it from life."
Longfellow House catalogue record, July 9, 2014: "Oval portrait, facial view; facing proper right. Black hair, eyes, and neck scarf; white collar. Black, brown, and white chalk shadowing and highlights."
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882). Poet, essayist, and philosopher. Key figure of transcendentalism movement as well as abolition advocate. Created a literary pilgrimage site out of his town of Concord, Massachusetts. Son of Reverend William and Susan (Haskins) Emerson. Married Ellen Louisa Tucker (m. c.1831), then Lidian Jackson (m. 1835).
White, Terry James. The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms, 1967–.
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