Thomas Berger Johnson

Thomas Berger Johnson
Born	1890 Omaha, Nebraska
Died	January, 1968 Seward Nebraska
Known for	Painting, drawing, and Metal Work
Style	Post-Impressionism
Spouse	Fay Sherwin

Painting of Cityscape by Thomas Berger Johnson in 1929.

Thomas Berger Johnson (c.1890, 1968) Nebraska artist, Post-Impressionist painter, metal sculptor, and drawer. He was known to have bold impasto, juxtaposing colors to create movement and an almost shimmering effect, within his paintings. Now most of his work resides with the Nebraska History Society in Lincoln, Nebraska, which was given to them by Mrs. Johnson after his death. The Nebraska History Society found the work important because his paintings represented locations in Nebraska accurately and depicted some locations that no longer existed.

Early life

Portrait, man, Charcoal, Thomas, Johnson. Made in 1922

Thomas Johnson's father Hjalmar Johnson was a Swedish immigrant who worked as a stationary engineer at a large hotel in Omaha, Nebraska and he married Christina Maddison, a pastry cook. Thomas was the second son of a family of five and was born in 1890. Johnson's first interest in art was from his father who was a craftsman that, sketched sea parts and built ship models. When Thomas Johnson was a second-grader at the Mason Street School in Omaha, Emma Wheatley, the principal, noted his talent and gave him special instruction on art. When Tom was 10 years old his father died of malaria. He then moved away from his mother to live with his mother's brother Louis O. Aker on a farm near Harvard, Nebraska. During this time he went to country school with his cousins and spent time drawing. At 16 he rejoined his mother, sisters, and grandmother in Stanton, Iowa. To make money for the family he worked at Eklofs Blacksmith Shop in Valley, Nebraska.

Schooling

At age 31 he enrolled to become a student of art at the Department of Fine Arts, Bethany College, Lindsborg, Kansas, 1921-1923. He studied painting, drawing, and art history, under instructor Dr. Birger Sandzén, who influenced Johnson's painting style. Thomas Johnson's painting would become impressionist in art style with a heavy impasto. In an article in the Omaha World-Herald magazine, November 1969, art critic Leonard Thiessen said,

“He studied with Birger Sandzen at Lindsborg, Kansas. His painting shows the impressionistic, heavy-impasto handling favored by the anti-establishment "Konstnaersforbundent" group in Stockholm, with which Sandzen was allied before emigrating to the U.S."

From 1923-1934, he studied at the Broadmoor Academy of Art, Colorado Springs, Colorado. There hes studied drawing from life, with instructor, Robert Reid. Johnson would go back to the Department of Fine Arts, Bethany College in 1924-1925, to gain his Artist's Certificate, on June 4, 1925. Lastly, Minneapolis School of Art, Minneapolis, Minnesota from 1926-1927.

Career and later life

After schooling Thomas Johnson decided to make money by other means, his reason was that he wanted creative freedom with his art. In 1930 Thomas Berger took a course in special welding at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and worked for the laboratory division for agricultural engineering department. He worked on a tractor testing lab or motor lab requiring the a skill of welding. He made equipment for testing oil filters and he was then, listed as a co-author of a publication describing the devices. Around this time he used his knowledge of welding to make sculptures from ornamental iron. He forged vases, lamps, lamp bases, candlesticks, and weather vanes. He used metal from iron bars, and old car parts. During this time he made a work of art titled The Phoenix (Phoenix) which was quarter-inch bars of iron welded together twisting to form a bird. It is 6 ft (1.8 m) high with a light bulb at the top in the plumage of the bird. His metal design was described in the Omaha World-Herald magazine, November 1969, Critic Thiessen believed that his iron sculptures were reminiscent of Art Nouveau design and prophetic of psychedelic design.

Drawings

Around 1940, Thomas B. Johnson's religion, Christianity inspired a series of drawings. Also around this time he had developed a new interest in his art to present other cultures and ethnicities. He started a series of making spiritual drawings about African Americans that dealt with themes of spirituality and race. It is believed that he started these drawings, due to his background, with his family being immigrants to America. One of the drawings was All God’s Children Got Wings, pencil 1944 It is a depiction of a group of African Americans, all depicted as angels. He writes a poem which he does often, with his drawings. The poem goes as follows:

All God's children got a robe,
I'm going to put on my robe and shout
all over God's Heaven.
All God's children got wings,
I'm going to put on my wings, and a'fly
all over God's Heaven.

His last series was on Native American religious spirituals based on research he did on Native American religions and their culture. The series ended up being unfinished due to his death. One of his last drawings was Shadow, a pencil, in 1962 depicting a silhouette of a Native American being reflected down to earth from a star in the sky with the man being in the star. The work is accompanied by the poem which goes as follows:

The spirit is the only REALITY. All else is but the shadow of REALITY.”

Retirement

In 1937, Thomas B. Johnson married Fay Sherwin from Harvard, Nebraska. On her mother's side, she was descended from Moffitts and was related to Lewis Moffitt, founder of Seward, Nebraska. In February 1956 they moved to Seward, and Thomas Johnson retired from the UNL laboratory division of agriculture. Johnson continued his painting and drawing. Around this time he made art and shared a space with Anton Pearson a close friend and a woodcarver from Lindsborg, Kansass.

After his death

In January 1968, Thomas Johnson died at 78, leaving behind 40 canvases, numerous ironwork, drawings, and block prints. It was most of his life's work because he found it hard to put a dollar amount on his work. After, Mrs. Johnson provided a charter for the acquisition of the art to The Nebraska State Historical Society. The work was of interest to the society due fact that Thomas Johnson was a native Nebraskan and that his paintings documented many cities and landscapes of Nebraska and some that no longer existed. After his drawings, notes, and artwork were given away, Thomas Johnson's views on art were revealed in his notes. Often he perceived himself to be a part of the “people'' in which stated in his notebooks, he also revealed that he believed his drawings were “of and for the people”, not for a “select few”. He says this due to the fact he lived in Nebraska his whole life and has deep connections to the places depicted within his art. The year after in 1969 his work was shown at the Koenig Art Gallery at Concordia University, Seward Nebraska. Dolores Gunnerson writing for the Nebraska State Historical Society Publication 1978, claims that his local scenes show an appreciation of his surroundings from being born in Omaha as a blacksmith to a farm hand and that the kind of people he painted, he identified with them. Now his work sits at the Nebraska History Society's headquarters in Nebraska Lincoln. Few are on the market now; two paintings were showcased on PBS's Antiques Roadshow, airing in 2016. They got an Auction value of six to eight thousand dollars for each from Battery Krulick the appraiser.

List of works

These are some of the works of art that are held by Nebraska History Society.

Paintings

Paintings include:

• Good Afternoon Ma'am, oil, 1928
• Street Scene, oil, 1938
• Sentinel, oil, 1942
• Timber Line, oil, 1942
• Mirror, oil, 1944
• Kansas City Bluffs, oil, 1945
• Patron Saint of Beggars, oil, 1946
• Ore Mill, oil, 1946
• Cathedral Spires, oil, 1947
• Glen Eyre, oil, 1948
• Pastoral, oil, 1949
• Natural Bridge, oil, 1950
• Pioneer Cabin, oil, 1951
• Tapestry, oil, 1951
• Low Sun, oil, 1953
• Lake of the Ozarks, oil, 1957
• Reflections, oil, 1957
• Bayou Reflections, oil, 1960
• River Dwellers, oil, 1960
• As the Wind Blows, oil, 1962
• Patriarchs, oil, 1962
• Sky Towers, oil, 1964
• Cliffs, oil, 1964
• Tipton's Barn, oil, 1964
• Sioux River, oil, 1965,

Drawings

Drawings include:

• Today Shalt Thou Be With Me in Paradise, charcoal, 1952
• Hill Top, pencil, 1932 Crow Ghost, pencil, 1967
• Fertility Cults - Butterfly, pencil, 1966
• The Swallow Clan, pencil, 1966
• The Star Maiden, pencil, 1967
• Baptismal, pencil, 1967
• Footprints I Have Made, pencil, 1967 Mother Corn, pencil, 1967
• Ode to the Pasque Flower, pencil, 1967
• Roll the Old Chariot Along, pencil, 1946
• Just a Closer Walk with Thee, pencil, 1945
• My Lord's A-Writing' All the Time, pencil, 1946
• Hold the Light, pencil, 1946
• Keep Me From Sinking Down, pencil, 1944
• When I'm Dead, pencil, 1951
• O' Rocks Don't Fall on Me, pencil, 1944
• Go Down Death, pencil, 1944
• Pastoral, pencil, 1949
• Was Moses Like That, pencil, undated He is Not Here For He is Risen/They Took the Money and Did As They Were Taught, pencil, 1943
• Descent From the Cross, pencil, 1943
• I Am Innocent of the Blood of This Just Person, See Ye To It, charcoal, 1942
• Jesus Being Taken to Tomb, charcoal, 1942

Block prints

Block prints include:

• Bock and Tree - Balzak, block print, undated
• Eroded Knoll, block print, 1963
• Tree-Wyoming, block print, undated
• End of Ridge, block print, undated
• Rock and Tree - Balzak, block print, undated Line Pine, block print, undated
• Slit Rock and Mulberry, block print, undated
• Shoes or Portrait of the Johnsons, block print, 1965
• Rock Ridge - South Dakota, block print, 1963
• Rock and Pine Tree, block print, undated

Metal works

Metal works include:

• Phoenix, iron, c. 1935
• Ewer, iron, c. 1935
• Lamp, iron, c. 1935