The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of May 16, 2022

Study, North Conway, New Hampshire

1851

David Johnson

(American, 1827-1908)

America, 19th century

Oil on canvas

Framed: 63.8 x 74.3 x 7 cm (25 1/8 x 29 1/4 x 2 3/4 in.); Unframed: 43.2 x 53.3 cm (17 x 21 in.); Former: 52 x 62 x 8 cm (20 1/2 x 24 7/16 x 3 1/8 in.)

Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund 1967.125

Location

206 American Landscape

Fun Fact

North Conway, New Hampshire, markets itself as the birthplace of American skiing.

Description

Johnson’s devotion to carefully observing nature is evident in his detailed rendering of a riverbed. Located in a village that provided a popular jumping-off point for tourists visiting the White Mountains, this untamed site features a haphazard arrangement of angled boulders, slippery moss, splintered tree branches, and dense undergrowth. Contemporary travel guidebooks often cautioned against the physical challenges—and the potential for injury—encountered by venturing into such inner recesses of the woods; one warned that “wild forest-clambering” could be akin to “fighting a phalanx of porcupines.”

Inscriptions

Inscription

Signed lower right: "D. Johnson. / 1851"; inscribed lower left: "D.J. 1851. (false); signed on the back: "Study. North Conway. N.H. / David Johnson 1851]"

Provenance
(R. Schoelkopf Gallery, New York)
Citations
Spahr, P. Andrew, Mount Washington: The Crown of New England. Manchester, New Hampshire: Currier Museum of Art, 2016. p. 61 Reproduced: p. 61, fig. 49
Quinn, Karen E. "Mount Washington: The Crown of New England". American Art Review. 28, no. 5 (Sept./Oct. 2016): 64-73, 111. Reproduce: p. 72
Exhibition history

Cleveland, OH, Cleveland Museum of Art, Year In Review for 1967 (29 November - 31 December 1967).

Mansfield, OH, Mansfield Art Center, The American Landscape (8 March - 5 April 1981), p. 7, cat no. 13.

Cleveland, OH, Cleveland Museum of Art, Visions of Landscape: East and West (17 February - 21 March 1982)

New York, NY, Metropolitan Museum of Art, American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School (4 October 1987 - 3 January 1988), cat. p. 270-72.

Ithaca, NY, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Nature Transcribed: The Landscapes and Still Lifes of David Johnson (1827-1908) (5 November - 23 December 1988), did not travel to University of Maryland, College Park; Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, Athens; or National Academy of Design, New York; cat. no. 4, p. 18-19, ill. p. 18.

Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, NH (10/1/2016 – 1/16/2017): "Mount Washington: The Crown of New England"

Year in Review: 1967. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (November 29-December 31, 1967).

Visions of Landscape: East and West. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (February 17-March 21, 1982).

Mount Washington: The Crown of New England. Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, NH (organizer) (October 1, 2016-January 16, 2017).

Source URL: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1967.125