David Johnson

David Johnson painted small, tightly finished landscapes of the American Northeast, rich in colour and calm in mood. He was a second generation Hudson River School painter and is associated with Luminism, the style that treats light and still air with great delicacy.

Born in New York City, he studied at the National Academy of Design and briefly with Jasper Francis Cropsey. He painted the Catskills, the White Mountains, central New York and above all Lake George, building each picture from careful studies made outdoors. Later in his career he took on some of the softer, looser manner of the French Barbizon painters. His work is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art and the Brooklyn Museum.

Natural Bridge, painted in Virginia in 1860, and his Lake George views show his clear light and patient detail.