Claudette Elaine Johnson (born 1959) is a British visual artist. She is known for her large-scale drawings of Black women and involvement with the

BLK Art Group The BLK Art Group is the name associated with a group of five influential conceptual artists, painters, sculptors and installation artists based in the United Kingdom. Keith Piper, Marlene Smith, Eddie Chambers Claudette Johnson and Donald Ro ...

. She was described by

Modern Art Oxford Modern Art Oxford is an art gallery established in 1965 in Oxford, England. From 1965 to 2002, it was called The Museum of Modern Art, Oxford. The gallery presents exhibitions of modern and contemporary art. It has a national and internationa ...

as "one of the most accomplished figurative artists working in Britain today"."Claudette Johnson: I Came to Dance , 1 June — 8 September 2019"
Modern Art Oxford.

Biography

Claudette Johnson was born in

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

, UK. She studied Fine Art at

Wolverhampton Polytechnic The University of Wolverhampton is a public university located on four campuses across the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, Shropshire and Staffordshire in England. The roots of the university lie in the Wolverhampton Tradesmen's and Mech ...

. While still a student there, she became a founder member of the

and took part in their second show at the

Africa Centre, London The Africa Centre, London was founded in 1964 at 38 King Street, Covent Garden, where over the years it held many art exhibitions, conferences, lectures, and a variety of cultural events, as well as housing a gallery, meeting halls, restaurant, b ...

, in 1983. Her talk, and seminar, at the First National Black Arts Conference in 1982 is recognised as a formative moment in the Black feminist art movement in the UK. Johnson's work has featured in important group exhibitions such as '' Five Black Women'' at London's Africa Centre Gallery in 1983, ''Black Woman Time Now'' at Battersea Arts Centre in the same year, and ''The Thin Black Line'' at the ICA in London in 1986. Reviewing her 1992 solo exhibition ''In This Skin: Drawings by Claudette Johnson'', at the Black Art Gallery, London, artist Steve McQueen (at the time a student at

Goldsmiths College Goldsmiths, University of London, officially the Goldsmiths' College, is a constituent research university of the University of London in England. It was originally founded in 1891 as The Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute by the Wo ...

) wrote: "What she does is to bring out the soul, sensuality, dignity, and spirituality of the black woman....Claudette Johnson's work is rooted in her African heritage. Her talent is as powerful as it is obvious."

Lubaina Himid Lubaina Himid (born 1954) is a British artist and curator. She is a professor of contemporary art at the University of Central Lancashire. The artist calls the Black women in her drawings "monoliths, larger than life versions of women".

Eddie Chambers Edward Chambers (born March 29, 1982) is an American former professional boxer. He challenged once for a unified world heavyweight title in 2010. He was ranked as the fourth best heavyweight in the world by '' The Ring'' at the conclusion of 20 ...

notes: "These portraits were imposing pieces that demanded the viewer’s attention, as well as their respect." In 2011, Johnson co-founded the BLK Arts Research Group with Marlene Smith and Keith Piper, to re-examine the BLK Arts Group's body of work and historical legacy. In 2012, two major projects were staged by this research group: a symposium with a retrospective exhibition entitled ''The Blk Art Group'' was held at the Graves Gallery,

Sheffield Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire a ...

, and an international conference entitled "Reframing the Moment" was held at the

University of Wolverhampton The University of Wolverhampton is a public university located on four campuses across the West Midlands, Shropshire and Staffordshire in England. The roots of the university lie in the Wolverhampton Tradesmen's and Mechanics' Institute founde ...

. Her work was included in the

Guildhall Art Gallery The Guildhall Art Gallery houses the art collection of the City of London, England. The museum is located in the Moorgate area of the City of London. It is a stone building in a semi-Gothic style intended to be sympathetic to the historic Guil ...

exhibition '' No Colour Bar: Black British Art in Action 1960–1990'' (10 July 2015 – 24 January 2016). Johnson had a solo exhibition at Hollybush Gardens, London (17 November 2017 – 22 December 2017), where a series of seven of her large-scale works on paper was presented, about which ''

Frieze In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...

'' magazine said: "As a body of work, it possesses a profound and tender intimacy." In 2019, her first major institutional exhibition since 1990 was held at

, the show being described as "an overview of one of the most accomplished figurative artists working in Britain today....her art sets out to redress negative portrayals of black men and women and to counter the invisibility of black people in cultural spheres and beyond." The reviewer for '' Art Fund'' wrote: "Intimate, powerful and sometimes deliberately uncomfortable, Claudette Johnson’s studies of black men and women demand attention and command respect." According to ''

Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label= Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label ...

'' magazine: "While Johnson asserts that blackness is a fiction created by colonialism, she insists that this fiction 'can be interrupted by an encounter with the stories that we have to tell about ourselves'. Johnson’s subjects, by turns defiant and wary, funny and challenging, represent the varieties of stories that can be told by, in the artist’s words, 'Blackwoman presence.' As Johnson says, 'I’m interested in our humanity, our feelings and our politics.' Her art encapsulates all this in the tenderness and wilfulness of the individual human form." Johnson's work is in the collections of the Tate London, Rugby Art Gallery, Arts Council England,

Mappin Art Gallery Weston Park Museum is a museum in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. It is one mile west of Sheffield city centre within Weston Park. It is Sheffield's largest museum and is housed in a Grade II* listed building and managed by Museums Sheffi ...

Manchester Art Gallery Manchester Art Gallery, formerly Manchester City Art Gallery, is a publicly owned art museum on Mosley Street in Manchester city centre. The main gallery premises were built for a learned society in 1823 and today its collection occupies three ...

and

Wolverhampton Art Gallery Wolverhampton Art Gallery is located in the City of Wolverhampton, in the West Midlands, United Kingdom. The building was funded and constructed by local contractor Philip Horsman (1825–1890), and built on land provided by the municipal aut ...

. Johnson was appointed

Member of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(MBE) in the

2022 New Year Honours The 2022 New Year Honours are appointments by some of the 15 Commonwealth realms to various orders and honours to recognise and reward good works by citizens of those countries. The New Year Honours are awarded as part of the New Year celebrations ...

for services to art.

Selected exhibitions

* 1983: '' Five Black Women Artists''. Africa Centre, London. * 1983: ''

Black Women Time Now ''Black Women Time Now'' was a 1983 art exhibition at the Battersea Arts Centre in London, featuring the work of fifteen artists announcing themselves as Black Women. The exhibition, curated by Lubaina Himid, was funded by the GLC. The participa ...

''. Battersea Arts Centre London. * 1984: ''Into the Open: New Paintings Prints and Sculptures by Black Contemporary Artists''. Mappin Art Gallery,

. * 1986: ''The Thin Black Line''.

Institute of Contemporary Arts The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. Located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch, the ICA c ...

, London. * 1987: ''The Image Employed: The Use of Narrative in Black Art''. Corner-House, Manchester. * 1992: ''In This Skin: Drawings by Claudette Johnson''. Black Art Gallery, London. * 1997: ''Transforming the Crown: African, Asian and Caribbean Artists in Britain 1966–1986''. Royal Festival Hall, London, and The Caribbean Cultural Centre,

The Studio Museum in Harlem The Studio Museum in Harlem is an American art museum devoted to the work of artists of African descent. The museum's galleries are currently closed in preparation for a building project that will replace the current building, located at 144 W ...

and The Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York. * 2012: ''Thin Black Line(s)''.

Tate Britain Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in ...

, London. * 2015–16: '' No Colour Bar: Black British Art in Action 1960–1990'',

, London * 2017: ''Claudette Johnson'', Hollybush Gardens, London * 2019: ''Claudette Johnson: I Came to Dance'',

(1 June – 8 September 2019)

References

External links

Claudette Johnson in the Arts Council England collection

A Claudette Johnson Study Day 2013, The Room Next to Mine by Marlene Smith

"Claudette Johnson"
at Diaspora Artists.
"Claudette Johnson on three decades of her black feminist art and what has changed since the early 1980s"
''Creative Boom'', 20 May 2019. * Fisun Güner
"A Q&A with… Claudette Johnson, artist exploring black identity and representation"
''a-n.co.uk'', 12 June 2019.
"Artist of the Month: Claudette Johnson"
Arts Council Collection, November 2018.
"Claudette Johnson"
at Hollybush Gardens. {{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Claudette 1959 births Living people 20th-century English painters 20th-century English women artists 21st-century English painters 21st-century English women artists Alumni of the University of Wolverhampton Artists from Manchester Black British artists English contemporary artists Members of the Order of the British Empire

Biography

Selected exhibitions

References

Further reading

External links