Painter, potter, ceramist, printmaker, graphic artist, sculptor, and carver Sargent Claude Johnson was born on October 7th 1887 in Boston, Massachusetts. He was the third of six children, born to a father of Swedish descent and mother of African-American and Cherokee ancestry. Sargent was orphaned at an early age. In the early years, the children lived with an uncle, Sherman William Jackson, who became principal of the M Street High School (later renamed Dunbar High School), and his wife, May Howard Jackson, in Washington, D.C. His inspiration in becoming an artist was influenced by his uncle’s wife. May was a pioneer African-American sculptor specializing in portrait busts with Negro themes.
Later, the children were sent to their maternal grandparents in Alexandria, Virginia. From the grandparents' home, the boys of the family were sent to an orphanage in Worcester, Massachusetts and the girls to a Catholic school for African American and Native American girls in Pennsylvania. Some of his siblings did not identify themselves as African American, and chose to live as either Native Americans or Caucasians, though Sargent identified as African American. Johnson was sent to a public school specializing in music and mechanical drawing. While attending night school to increase his knowledge of art, he did some artwork for the Sisters of Charity and worked in their St. Vincent Hospital.
Sargent Claude Johnson moved to San Francisco in 1915 at the time of the Panama Pacific International Exposition, which had a profound influence on the California art movement. Later that year, he married Pearl Lawson, a Georgia woman of English and Black French Creole ancestry. Shortly after he arrived in California, Johnson attended San Francisco’s avant-garde A.W. Best School of Art on California Street, studying drawing and painting. From 1919 to 1923 and from 1940 to 1942, he attended the California School of Fine Arts. His piece, Elizabeth Gee, was later shown in the 1928 Harmon Foundation exhibit. Elizabeth was a neighbor's child, as were several of his models. Sargent Claude Johnson's work was added to Harmon Foundation exhibits from 1926 to 1935.
Johnson was at his highest peak stylistically during the Harlem Renaissance era, coinciding with the Harmon Foundation Exhibitions. Johnson’s early works are portraits and busts of those around him or works fashioned after ideas affecting his life. His work gained recognition in a local exhibition in 1925. His works became nationally and internationally known through the sales and shows of this organization. Most of his work during this period reflected the ideas of the Harlem Renaissance, making him one of the most outstanding artists producing Black subject matter. Black portraits, masks, and mother-and-child themes were often repeated in his drawings and sculpture. Johnson was aware of other Blacks in the arts during the Harlem Renaissance period, their writings and their music, as well as the works of other artists.
Beginning in 1927, Johnson's works were included in annual touring exhibitions mounted by the Harmon Foundation of New York, known for supporting African-American art. The 1931 Harmon exhibition featured Sargent's terra cotta portrait of a boy, Chester, on the cover of the exhibition catalogue. Depicting a neighborhood boy whom the artist described as "that kid [who] used to come to my studio," the work would become Sargent's most award-winning sculpture, "exhibited and published widely during his lifetime, adding to his fame as one of the most-recognized Black sculptors in America." In the 1933 exhibition, a $150 prize for most outstanding work went to Johnson's "Pearl", a glazed stoneware sculpture of his infant daughter. The 1933 show also included Johnson's drawing "Defiant", depicting a standing mother protectively clasping two nude children huddled against her.
From 1925 to 1933, Johnson established a studio in his backyard. He worked evenings in his spare time. He worked in wood, ceramics, oils, watercolors, and graphics with equal facility. In 1935, Johnson was employed by the massive Federal Arts Project in the Bay Area as an artist, senior sculptor, assistant supervisor, assistant state supervisor, and finally, unit supervisor. His first large project was a carved redwood organ screen in low relief, at the California School for the Blind in Berkeley in 1937. As a member of the bohemian San Francisco Bay community and influenced by the New Negro movement popularized during the Harlem Renaissance, Sargent Johnson's early work focused on racial identity.
Johnson also created a carved redwood panel that is in the collection of Huntington Library in San Marino, California. Another of his well-known works was his "Forever Free" (1933), a painted wood sculpture of a mother and two children. Although Johnson seemed isolated on the West Coast, he was participating in several activities with other Blacks where information on the arts was available to keep them all abreast of the achievements of others. He won an award in 1935 from the Alameda County Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Johnson worked on murals in Black churches in Oakland, and he participated in various activities with other Black artists promoting Black arts in the area.
He was influenced by a piece of music written by William Grant Still, and Still was influenced by his piece "Forever Free". This was a time of cross and counter influences. One of the many awards won by Johnson through the Harmon Foundation was for his piece called "Sammy." It is fashioned after NAACP member Walter Gordon's son. Although Johnson seemed isolated on the West Coast, he participated in several activities with other Blacks, where information on the arts was available to keep them all up-to-date of the achievements of others. Johnson worked on murals in Black churches in Oakland and participated in various activities with other Black artists, promoting Black arts in the area. During these early years, Johnson was a member of the San Francisco Art Association in 1932.
The Federal Arts Project gave Johnson the chance that he needed to express himself with new materials and allowed him to work on a massive scale in well-equipped studios. As a member of the bohemian San Francisco Bay community and influenced by the New Negro movement popularized during the Harlem Renaissance, Sargent Johnson's early work focused on racial identity. Sargent Johnson's work is notable for its clean simplicity, directness, and strength of conception and execution. He focused most of his work on his depictions of African Americans, especially in redefining the image of the Black woman.
Johnson received the Abraham Rosenberg Scholarship in 1944 and 1949 and used the money to travel and to study sculpture. Sargent Johnson made a number of trips to Oaxaca and Southern Mexico and started incorporating the people and culture, particularly archeology, into his work. Other subjects included African American figures, animals, and Native Americans. Johnson also began experimenting with different types of mediums such as ceramics and paint during this time also. From the village of San Bartolo Coyotepec, where the famous Black clay pots are made Johnson began working with that material. During this time he experimented with new materials, including porcelain on steel panels, cast bronze, and forged enameled wire. His interest in music had grown over the years, and he learned to play the guitar.
In all paintings, he was representing an idea. The major idea that was pronounced in his paintings is the fight against racism during the time of the Harlem Renaissance. He aimed at communicating, that racism should be abolished in America and every person had the same rights. Sargent’s artwork was influenced by the personal, philosophical and aesthetic view of art. His artwork was world hybrid of both African and American art. In his work, he pointed out the role of African-American artist in the America’s cultural democracy. Despite having lived in San Francisco for most of his adult life, Johnson was considered one of the leading artists of the Harlem Renaissance. Johnson won the Harmon Foundation medal for outstanding African American artist three times. He continued to live and sculpt in San Francisco until his death in 1967 in San Francisco.
