J. Seward Johnson Jr.

John Seward Johnson II (April 16, 1930 – March 10, 2020), also known as J. Seward Johnson Jr. and Seward Johnson, was an American artist known for ''trompe-l'œil'' painted bronze statues. He was a grandson of Robert Wood Johnson I, the co-founder of Johnson & Johnson, and of Colonel Thomas Melville Dill of Bermuda.

He designed life-size bronze statues that were castings of living people, depicting them engaged in day-to-day activities. A large staff of technicians did the fabrication of the works he designed. Computers and digital technology often were used in the manufacturing process. Sometimes the manufacture was contracted in China. He was the founder of Grounds For Sculpture, a sculpture park and museum located in Hamilton Township, Mercer County, New Jersey.

Early life

Johnson was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey on April 16, 1930. His father was John Seward Johnson I, and his mother was Ruth Dill, the sister of actress Diana Dill, making him a first cousin of actor Michael Douglas. Johnson grew up with five siblings: Mary Lea Johnson Richards, Elaine Johnson, Diana Melville Johnson, Jennifer Underwood Johnson, and James Loring "Jimmy" Johnson. His parents divorced around 1937. His father remarried two years later, producing his only brother, Jimmy Johnson, making him an uncle to film director Jamie Johnson.

Johnson attended Forman School for dyslexics. Later, he attended the University of Maine, where he majored in poultry husbandry, but did not graduate. Johnson also served four years in the United States Navy during the Korean War.

Career

Johnson worked for Johnson & Johnson until 1962, when he was fired by his uncle Robert Wood Johnson II, who had turned the family business into one of the world's largest healthcare corporations.

Johnson maintained a studio in Princeton, New Jersey and later, another at a site in Mercerville, New Jersey that formerly had been used for the New Jersey State Fair.

His early artistic efforts focused on painting, after which he turned to sculpture in 1968. Examples of his statues include:
* ''Spring'' (1979), a bronze dedicated in 1979, set in the Crim Dell Woods section of the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia. Other examples of ''Spring'' castings include the East Brunswick, New Jersey public library and the Fitton Center for Creative Arts in Hamilton, Ohio.
* '' The Awakening'' (1980), his largest and most dramatic work, a five-part statue that depicts a giant trying to free himself from underground. The sculpture was located at Hains Point in Washington, D.C. for nearly twenty-eight years while still owned by Johnson. It was moved to Prince George's County, Maryland in February 2008 and an attempt was made by the new curator to correct some of the scale distortions of the original installation by altering some implied underground connections and placing the parts in different relationships to each other.
* ''Double Check'' (1982), a statue of a businessman checking his attaché case, formerly located in Liberty Plaza Park across an intersection from the World Trade Center, as part of the public space required by a zoning variance granted to the developer of the adjoining skyscraper. Widely published photographs of the debris-battered and dust-covered statue, were taken following the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001. The statue, scars and all, was returned to a prominent corner of the restored and renamed Zuccotti Park in 2006, again open to the public. Periodically, the statue has been adorned by tourists, pranksters, and even Occupy Wall Street protesters.
* ''Hitchhiker'' (1983), a statue at Hofstra University, at the California Avenue gate, near a road leading away from campus.
* ''Allow Me'' (Portland, Oregon) (1984), a statue of man holding an umbrella, in Pioneer Courthouse Square in Portland, Oregon (part of the '' Allow Me'' series).
* ''Competition'' (1984), a statue of Julie Wier, Fairview Heights, Illinois, chosen to represent the spirit of the people of St. Louis as winner of the "picture yourself as a work of art" contest. Dedicated on June 16, 1984 unsigned St. Louis County Library in St. Louis, Missouri.
* ''Waiting'' (1988), at Australia Square, Sydney, Australia
* ''Déjeuner Déjà Vu'' (1994), at Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton Township, Mercer County, New Jersey, a facility founded by Johnson, is a three-dimensional restaging of Édouard Manet's painting, '' Le déjeuner sur l'herbe''

* ''Copyright Infringement'' (1994), at Grounds for Sculpture (a facility founded by Johnson) is a sculpture that he named to flaunt his disdain for criticism of his copies of the iconic works of fine art artists with international recognition. It represents the fine artist Édouard Manet, whose work he has copied.
* ''Unconditional Surrender'' (a series with several material versions begun in 2005), a spokesperson for Johnson has stated that this series is based on a photograph that is in the public domain, ''Kissing the War Goodbye'', by Victor Jorgensen,Robert L. Pincus,
Port surrenders in the battle against kitsch
", ''San Diego Union-Tribune,'' March 11, 2007. however, the Jorgensen photographic image does not extend low enough to include the lower legs and shoes of the subjects, revealed in Alfred Eisenstaedt's famous photograph, '' V–J day in Times Square'', that are represented identically in the statue. A spokesperson for ''Life'' has called it a copyright infringement of the latter image. Nonetheless, the first version, a bronze statue in life-size, was placed on temporary exhibition during the 2005 anniversary of V-J Day at the Times Square Information Center near where the original photographs were taken in Manhattan.

:Several slightly differing twenty-five-feet-tall-versions have been constructed in styrofoam and aluminum with little detail, painted, and put on display by Johnson in San Diego, California, Key West, Florida, Snug Harbor in New York, and Sarasota, Florida. Their immensity has drawn crowds of viewers at each site although the view of them from nearby is severely limited, essentially allowing a vista of the legs and up the skirt. The statues have been described as kitsch by one critic. Johnson later would dub the statue "Embracing Peace", which he treated as a double entendre when spoken.

:A proposal to establish a permanent location for a copy on the Sarasota bay front generated a heated controversy about the suitability of the statue to the location, suitability as a military service memorial, the permanent placement of any statue on that public property, as well as the particular issues of lack of originality, mechanical construction, copyright infringement, and the kitsch allegations about the statue. In final agreement documents with the purchaser (a private person), Johnson committed the purchase price to cover copyright liability damages in order to have the statue placed. The city was wary of accepting a gift from the purchaser that might result in a financial loss from a possible legal battle that evidenced merit, according to the city attorney.

:In October 2014, French feminist group Osez La Feminisme ! petitioned to have a copy of the statue, erected at a World War II memorial in Normandy in September 2014, removed and sent back to the United States, criticizing it as "immortaliinga sexual assault"

:Controversies surrounding the statue still existed in Sarasota at the close of 2021, when the question of whether to place a sign addressing them was presented to the city commission at a public meeting in Sarasota on December 6.

* ''Big Sister'', just outside the Pig 'N' Whistle pub and Michael's Restaurant at 123 Eagle Street, part of the ''Celebrating the Familiar'' series
*''Morris Frank and Buddy'' (2005) - a statue of the co-founder of The Seeing Eye and the first guide dog for the blind trained in the US stands in the Morristown Green in New Jersey. Frank is shown giving the "forward" command to his dog.
* ''First Ride'' (2006), a statue of a father helping his young daughter learn to ride a bike, in Carmel, Indiana.

* ''Newspaper Reader'', at the entrance to Steinman Park, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
* ''Forever Marilyn'' (2011), a , 17-ton representation of Marilyn Monroe standing over a gusty subway grate in her appearance in ''The Seven Year Itch''. Until 2012, the statue was located at Pioneer Court in Chicago, where it attracted many visitors and some controversy for its risque features. It was moved to downtown Palm Springs, California in 2012. In July 2013 plans were announced that it would be moved to New Jersey for a 2014 exhibit honoring Johnson at the Grounds For Sculpture.
* ''Magic Fountain'' stands outside The Bristol-Myers Squibb Children's Hospital in New Brunswick, New Jersey

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases