Richard S. Johnson is an award-winning contemporary American painter based in Chicago, Illinois.
Johnson was born in Chicago to a family of artists. While still in primary school, Johnson was accepted as a scholar to the Art Institute of Chicago. A graduate of the American Academy of Art, he embarked on a career as an illustrator.
Johnson is heavily influenced by Charles Dana Gibson, N.C. Wyeth, and John Singer Sargent, whose books he read as a child.
Johnson’s style has been regarded as having the technical excellence of Pre-Raphaelite romanticism mixed with contemporary expressionism and abstraction.
Johnson has also made portraits of historical personalities, such as former US president John F. Kennedy and former NASA administrator Richard H. Truly. His portrait of JFK now hangs at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, Massachusetts. He was also commissioned to create a commemorative painting honoring former US presidents. The painting is currently on display at the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports, and Nutrition in Washington, D.C.
Richard S. Johnson is a Chicago-born contemporary American artist into an artistic family. After graduating from the American Academy of Arts, early in his artistic career he worked as an illustrator. After winning the International Journal of Artists competition Richard S. Johnson was invited to work in Japan.
View Richard S. Johnson Paintings
Upon his return to the United States, he received numerous awards for the results of competitions held in the United States, including the first prize among oil painters in the United States in 2003. A string of charming female images in the paintings of Richard S Johnson is endless, the artist perfectly recreates the harmony of colors, lines and shapes, and sings the beauty embodied in a woman.