Lester Johnson (1919–2010) was an innovative figurative painter who has never quite fit into any of the accepted narratives of postwar American art, and that alone makes his work worthy of a longer look. Johnson was one of the few artists that was attuned to the dismay that everyone was feeling during the violent and schizophrenic time, the sense that it could all come crashing down. However, his work was never overtly political or didactic. While his dark, brooding, monochromatic paintings of anonymous men gained a small and loyal following, they also became part of that largely invisible history of a time when New York was a tough, scary and exciting place to be. More than fifty years after they were made, Johnson’s Dark Paintings continue to retain a coarseness that we associate with gestural Abstract Expressionism and Jean Dubuffet’s anti-psychological, anti-personal portraits incorporating sand and gravel. (John Yau 2013)

Works

Three Men Three Men Three Men Three Men Three Men
Three Men
1960

Fairs

The Armory Show
Javits Center 655 W 34th Street
September 24 - September 27, 2026
Booth 202
The Armory Show

Public Collections

Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo
Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago
Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit
Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Kalamazoo
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford
Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk
Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Provincetown
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence
Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield
Rose Art Museum, Waltham
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.