Catalogue Entry
When Johnson returned to the United States, he not only painted genre paintings but he also continued to paint portraits, which gave him a steady income. After 1880 Johnson turned to portraiture almost exclusively. During the 1880s and 1890s he painted businessmen, lawyers, university presidents, and three U.S. presidents from life. At times he also painted their wives and children.
He was also commissioned to paint posthumous portraits, often from photographs. These portraits by and large do not have the sparkle and active brushwork of those done from life. It seems that the demand for portraits of business and civic leaders (and members of exclusive men’s clubs) was so high that portrait painters would often make copies of each other’s paintings to satisfy the market for such images. In many instances, it has been difficult to render opinions for such paintings. —PH
MacGibeny, 2021: The distinctive style of the inscribed date of 1870, in which the "8" has a flat top, is unusual for a painting dated this early. Johnson began using that style with some regularity in the 1880s.
2020-02-19: Difficult to see the painting. Signed LL: E. Johnson/ 1870. Stern face, grim mouth, furrowed brow. Hands very life-like.
General George Henry Thomas (1816–1870). U.S. Army officer and Union general during the Civil War.
White, Terry James. The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms, 1967–.
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