William H. Johnson's family wants his artistry remembered

It’s the mid-1940s and an 11-year-old boy peeks through the curtains of the window of his home at Cheves and Kemp streets.

There’s a strange man at his door, so the boy calls to his mother for reassurance and verify who the caller is.

The boy, now a lively 73-year-old, is Florence resident James Johnson. The visitor is his uncle, William H. Johnson, who hails from Florence and is considered one of the most famous painters of modern art.

Johnson recalls their first meeting fondly.

“There was a knock at the door ... and I said to my mother ‘There’s a white man at the door.’ She said, ‘That’s your uncle.’ He was really light(-skinned),” Johnson said, chuckling. “I said ‘OK.’ That’s the only reason I let him in because he was my uncle, otherwise I wouldn’t have let him in.”

William H. Johnson was born in Florence, but spent most of his life in New York and working abroad in Europe before his death in 1970.

Many of his works depicting black life now hang in the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C.

Four of his paintings — “Evening,” “Rooftops,” “Jon” and “Children’s Party” — hang in the Florence Museum.

There’s a monument honoring the artist in Florence and this month, the Pee Dee Regional Center’s Volunteer Service Board honored the late artist through the city’s official 2009 Christmas in Florence ornament.

Some of William H. Johnson’s most recognizable works were painted during his visit to Florence, Johnson said.

His uncle was a true eclectic, a free spirit who took his showers in the rain while standing in the middle of his sister’s Florence yard, Johnson said.

“(That) was his main thing since there’s was a wooden picket fence around the yard. He just enjoyed it. We never criticized him for it,” Johnson said.

William H. Johnson was an artist who painted on any and everything, Johnson said.

“While he was here, mainly he liked to look at different things and paint different things, whatever he could find ... from burlap sacks, to cardboard, to hardwood, he just enjoyed all he could do,” he said.

One of his most recognized works, a painting called ‘Lil Sis,” depicts James Johnson’s own sister, Ernestine. The painting is of a young black girl in a blue dress with a dramatic yellow background.

When Ernestine, better know as “Lil Sis,” died in January, Florence Dr. Hunter Stokes, an advocate for William H. Johnson work, gave James Johnson a special gift.

“It was a photograph of lil sis looking at ‘Lil Sis,’” Johnson said. “He gave that to me.”

Stokes played an instrumental role in the William H. Johnson ornament and is considered “an honorary Johnson,” Johnson said. Everywhere Stokes goes, he’s sure to let people know who William H. Johnson is and that he was born in Florence.

His uncle didn’t spend much time in Florence, but visited after the death of his wife, Holcha. His wife was white and racial tension in the segregated South made it nearly impossible for a mixed-raced couple to live there.

“I didn’t get a chance to see him until about 1947 or 1948 when he came back to Florence,” Johnson said. “He couldn’t come back to Florence because his wife was from Denmark. At that time there was no relationship like that in South Carolina. So when she passed, he came home.”

His late sister Ernestine’s daughter is named Holcha after William H. Johnson’s wife, Johnson said.

Johnson said he believes his uncle would have visited more often if things had been different in the South.

“He didn’t really say too much about that because at that time he had his own little niche,” Johnson said. “He knew what he was going to be doing and it didn’t bother him at all. We were just happy he was here, because we hadn’t seen him in a long time. He hadn’t seen his mother (Alice Johnson) in a long time.”

William H. Johnson painted his work, “The Jacobia Hotel.” during his stay in Florence, Johnson said.

A lot of Florence folks weren’t too happy about that, he said.

The hotel was located on Coit Street in Florence and was a dilapidated building when the artist created the painting.

“He wasn’t ‘arrested.’ He was ‘detained’ in Florence,” Johnson said. “I guess the fathers of the city didn’t want the hotel to be seen. It had almost turned into a house of prostitution.

“The YMCA people came and paid his bond and let him out. He was detained just for that (painting). And you know, that picture hangs prominently in the Smithsonian. And they didn’t want anybody to know about it.”

Williams H. Johnson’s first exhibit was at the former Florence YMCA building where his mother worked.

After his death, many of his paintings sat in a warehouse in Europe because William H. Johnson’s mother couldn’t afford the cost of freight to have the paintings shipped home, Johnson said.

“Now, we don’t know this for sure, but someone said the paintings were to be destroyed,” he said. “Then the Smithsonian stepped in and paid the freight.”

The Johnson family is working to legally obtain some of the William H. Johnson works from the Smithsonian.

The family doesn’t want any particular painting, Johnson said. They just want some of the artwork to stay among relatives.

Johnson also wants Florence residents to know the great artist was born in their city and what his work was about.

“He painted pictures with life’s thoughts. He tried to put the working man in it,” he said. “I think of him as a home artist who tried to show surroundings as they really are. He was a common ground person, his roots were here. He’d been all around the world, but his roots were here.”

— Staff writer Jamie Rogers can be reached at (843) 317-7266. Comment on this story at www.scnow.com.