At Home Places Spring 2021

Joshua Johnson:

Portraitist of Early American Baltimore

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

written by SARAH J. HALL DIRECTOR OF THE WASHINGTON COUNTY MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS

“Joshua

Johnson: Portraitist of Early American Baltimore” brings together more than 20 works of this important and enigmatic artist at the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts. Johnson (c. 1763–1830), often described as the first professional Black portraitist in America, is a fascinating figure, and this show, the first museum exhibition devoted to him since 1988, brings new research and fresh thinking to his life and work.

Joshua Johnson (American, ca. 1763–1824), The James McCormick Family, 1804–1805, oil on canvas, Maryland Center for History and Culture, Baltimore, gift of Dr. Thomas C. McCormick. Photography by Maryland Center for History and Culture

Putting together an exhibition is one of the most gratifying aspects of museum work, but it’s a marathon. The timeline for creating a loan exhibition, from thesis to object list, through loan negotiations to installation, can happen in as little time as 18 months, but more often, museums are working on them for two to five years (Most museums require about a year’s notice to approve a painting for loan.)

The exhibition is built around two portraits in our collection, both dating to 1809 — “Portrait of Susanna Amos Yoe and Daughter Mary Elizabeth Yoe,” and “Portrait of Benjamin Franklin Yoe and Son Benjamin Franklin Yoe Jr.,” donated to the museum in 1994 by F. Sydney Cushwa, the great-grandson of Mary Elizabeth Yoe. The portraits, charming pieces of family history, also illuminate the commercial aspects of Johnson’s business. He specialized in portraits of families and children, and in the days before photography, it was not unusual for multiple portraits to be commissioned. In the case of the Yoes, a second version of each painting was made,

Joshua Johnson, (American, ca. 1763–1824) Rebecca Myring Everette (Mrs. Thomas Everette and her Children) 1818, oil on canvas, Maryland Center for History and Culture, Baltimore, bequest of Miss Mary Augusta Clarke. Photography by Maryland Center for History and Culture ensuring each child had a set of family portraits. The other pair descended with Benjamin Franklin Yoe Jr., and are now in the collection of the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Work on the exhibition began in earnest in mid-2018, when we started fundraising to help underwrite exhibitions costs. Costs for an exhibition include travel to examine paintings in other collections; conservation of artworks; building crates for safe transport of paintings; shipping; insurance; honoraria for speakers, teachers and catalog authors; catalog design and production; and the cost of installation itself — labels, signage, custom display needs and return shipping at the conclusion of a show.

Grant applications require a narrative and budget explaining the goals and purpose of the prospective exhibition. A funding proposal for the exhibition was submitted to the Art Dealers’ Association of America Foundation, and by the fall of 2018, the museum obtained word that we received a grant of $15,000 to support the exhibition. It is, however, unusual for a museum to receive a single grant large enough to cover all exhibition costs, and funders often want to see matching dollars from other sources, so the museum continued to raise funds.

In tandem with fundraising, the curatorial team worked to refine the exhibition’s thesis and contents. It was decided that the exhibition would explore facets of Johnson’s life and work that hadn’t before been focused on extensively — one aspect being a deeper look at the racial milieu in Baltimore during his life and another being a closer reading of the paintings, exploring their symbolism and placing them in the context of European and regional painting. Research and site visits help curators develop what is called a checklist — the list of proposed works. It’s typical to start with a big wish list of works because not all lenders will be able to say “yes.”

More grant writing was underway by early 2019, with a proposal submitted to the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), which included plans for an array of education- al programs for toddlers to adults, focusing on portraiture, social history, Black history, themes of overcoming personal challenges, and local connections to Johnson’s work and life. The museum received a coveted award from the NEA of $25,000 to support the exhibition. We also received Johnson-related support from the Community Foundation of Washington County MD Inc. and the Heart of the Civil War Heritage Area, as well as from museum members and private donors.

Exhibitions are ephemeral — all that work and logistical orchestration for a time-dependent experience that typically lasts about three months. We’ve scheduled the Johnson exhibition for six months for that reason.

Catalogs are an important way of documenting and preserving an exhibition. Typically, the catalog has more scholarly content than what can comfortably fit on a museum’s walls or be easily digested, and a good catalog will illustrate every piece in the show and provide additional comparison images. In February 2019, the catalog contents were outlined. David Taft Terry, Ph.D., assistant professor of history and museum studies at Morgan State University, and Mark Letzer, president and CEO of the Maryland Center for History and Culture, agreed to contribute essays

Joshua Johnson (American, ca. 1763–1824) Portrait of Susanna Amos and Elizabeth Yoe, 1809, oil on canvas, Washington County Museum of Fine Arts, gift of Sydney F. Cushwa, 1994. Photography by Edward Owen for Washington County Museum of Fine Arts related to Johnson’s life and work. The catalog will also include an essay by the museum’s own Agnita M. Stine Schreiber Curator Daniel Fulco.

Spring and summer 2019 were devoted to further research and site visits to communicate with lenders and secure agreements. Everything was on track for a fall 2020 opening when the COVID-19 lockdown hit last spring. For museums, there was an extended period of closure (for us, about four months) and many exhibitions fell apart because of museum closures. The team at Washington County Museum of Fine Arts quickly decided to reschedule the exhibition for spring 2021.

I admit that all the above happened without me. I joined the museum in July 2020, just as the catalog essays were near completion. The delay in the opening of the show allowed me to become a small part of this exciting and timely exhibition. As I write this, we’re in the thick of the final preparations — organizing packing and transportation, planning the physical installation, and reviewing gallery labels and texts, as well as catalog proofs. — Places