John Seward Johnson II
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John Seward Johnson II (born 1930), also known as J. Seward Johnson, Jr. and Seward Johnson is an American sculptor known for his trompe l'oeil bronze painted sculptures. While early in his life, his artistic life focused on painting, he turned his talents to sculpture in 1968. Mr. Johnson is most well known for his life-size cast bronze statues of people of all ages engaged in day-to-day activities such as a father teaching his child to ride a bike, a woman sunbathing, and two people on a park bench. He is the son of J. Seward Johnson, Sr.
Examples of his work include:
- The Awakening (1980), his largest and most dramatic work, a 70-foot five-part sculpture located at Hains Point in Washington, DC,
- Hitchhiker (1983), a statue along the side of a road leading away from the campus of Hofstra University,
- Allow Me (1984), a statue of man holding an umbrella, located in Pioneer Courthouse Square in Portland, Oregon,
- First Ride, a statue of a father helping his young daughter learn to ride a bike, and
- Déjeuner Déjà Vu (1994), located at Grounds For Sculpture in Hamilton, New Jersey, a three-dimensional recreation of Edouard Manet's painting, Le déjeuner sur l'herbe. [1]
He is past President of the International Sculpture Center of Washington, DC and created the Johnson Atelier Technical Institute of Sculpture, an educational, non-profit art casting and fabrication facility, in 1974 as a means of fostering young sculptors' talents. He was selected by the United States Information Agency as the only sculptor to represent the United States at the World EXPO celebration in Seville, Spain.
He is the grandson of Robert Wood Johnson, the founder of Johnson & Johnson Corporation. He was disinherited from his father's will, which left nearly all of his father's half-billion-dollar fortune to Basia Johnson, his father's wife of twelve years, a former servant. The dispute was written about in Undue Influence: The Epic Battle for the Johnson & Johnson Fortune (1993, ISBN 0-688-06425-6).
Johnson's grandson Jamie produced and directed a documentary, Born Rich (2003), which premiered at Sundance Film Festival and aired on HBO to generally favorable reviews.
In addition to his artistic endeavors, Johnson is the former President of a large oceanographic research institution in Florida, the publisher of a science magazine, and the founder of an off-Broadway theater in New York. A comprehensive book, Celebrating the Familiar: The Sculpture of J. Seward Johnson, Jr. (ISBN 0-912383-57-7), was published in 1987.
