Blue Garden

 

Ynez Johnston

  1920 - 2019 (biography)

1950  

color woodcut 

15 x 24" image 

pencil, lower right 

3 of 11  

editioned in pencil 

Nordland, page 40, illustrated, #17 

Japanese hosho 

published 

artist 

17720 

SOLD

This early, large woodcut by Johnston is quite rare, done in an edition of only 11 variant impressions. Ynez Johnston, printmaker, painter sculptor and teacher was born in Berkeley, California in 1920. She studied at the University of California, Berkeley where her instructors were Worth Ryder, Erle Loran and Margaret Peterson, who introduced her to the work of Picasso, Klee, Miro and Braque. Receiving her B.F.A. in 1941 she then studied in Mexico, returning to Berkeley in 1946 to get her M.F.A. In 1949 she summered in Paris and then relocated to the Los Angeles area in the fall. Finding herself without a sudio or press, Leonard Edmondson, a friend from college, opened his studio to her. In 1950 she experimented with woodcut and began to do sculpture. Johnston taught at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Chouinard Art Institute, Californai State College, University of Judaism and Otis Art Institute. Her teaching was punctuated with travel around the world, often from grants (Guggenheim, Tiffany, Huntington Hartford, N.E.A., etc.). In 1992 the Fresno Art Museum honored Johnston with their annual Distinguished Woman Artist award and, in 1998 a retrospective of her work was held at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History. Her works are held in the collections of numerous museums.