Dorothy C.
San Francisco Bay Area–artist Johnson was a sculptor of international renown. He also experimented with lithography, gaining access to Work Projects Administration (WPA)-operated printmaking facilities through his role as unit supervisor of the WPA sculpture division. Though his sculptures and prints are markedly different, the process of creating a lithograph by drawing on the surface of limestone has affinities with that of carving and sculpting. Dorothy C evinces Johnson’s engagement with abstraction while retaining referential figuration. Of his subjects, Johnson said, "It is the pure American Negro I am concerned with, aiming to show the natural beauty and dignity in that characteristic lip and that characteristic hair, bearing and manner; and I wish to show that beauty not so much to the white man as to the Negro himself."
Artwork Details
- Title: Dorothy C.
- Artist: Sargent Claude Johnson (American, Boston, Massachusetts 1888–1967 San Francisco, California)
- Publisher: WPA
- Date: 1938
- Medium: Lithograph
- Dimensions: sheet: 13 15/16 x 7 15/16 in. (35.4 x 20.2 cm)
image: 11 x 6 1/16 in. (28 x 15.4 cm) - Classification: Prints
- Credit Line: Gift of the Work Projects Administration, Allocation Unit, Chicago, 1943
- Object Number: 43.47.173
- Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints
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