Grace Johnson
1882-1967

Grace Mott Johnson grew up on a farm in Monsey, New York, where the constant presence of animals inspired her to sketch and to carve images in soap and plaster. After studying with Hermon Atkins MacNeil and Gutzon Borglum at the Art Students League in New York, Johnson left for a sojourn in Paris with modernist painter, and soon to be husband, Andrew Dasburg.  As part of the American community abroad, they were exposed to various advanced tendencies. In Paris, Johnson exhibited a study of Percheron Horses at the Salon in 1910.

Upon their return to New York, they established a studio in Woodstock, a thriving artist colony north of the city, where traditional and avant-garde influences co-existed. As an animalier, Johnson’s traditional figurative sculptures were amplified by modernist impulses whether through impressionistic handling of surface or extreme simplification of form. Both Johnson and Dasburg exhibited in the landmark Armory Show in 1913. Johnson showed Greyhound Pup, No. 2 (c. 1912) and Chimpanzees (1912, Woodstock Artists’ Association & Museum). In subsequent years Johnson and Dasburg drifted apart and they divorced in 1922. Johnson continued to work into the 1930’s when she was forced to give up her studio during the Depression. She left her papers to the Beinecke Library at Yale University.