Corn Husking at Nantucket

Eastman Johnson prints bring nineteenth-century American life into your home: cranberry pickers on Nantucket, children around an old stagecoach, family gatherings and quiet kitchens. Johnson trained in Düsseldorf and The Hague, was called "the American Rembrandt" in his day, and co-founded the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Our collection of fine art prints includes his genre scenes, Civil War pictures, portraits and sketches.

About Eastman Johnson

Jonathan Eastman Johnson was born in Lovell, Maine, on 29 July 1824, and grew up in Fryeburg and Augusta. At sixteen he was apprenticed to a Boston lithographer. In his twenties he made crayon portraits in Washington, including John Quincy Adams and Dolley Madison, and then worked in Boston.

In 1849 he went to study at the Düsseldorf Academy, and in 1851 joined the studio of Emanuel Leutze. He moved on to The Hague, where he studied the Dutch and Flemish masters of the seventeenth century, and ended his travels in Paris with Thomas Couture in 1855. In 1856 and 1857 he spent time among the Ojibwe people near Superior, Wisconsin, painting portraits that are still admired for their individual likenesses.

Back in New York, his Negro Life at the South made his name at the National Academy of Design in 1859. He painted Civil War subjects, and from the 1870s scenes of New England and Nantucket life such as The Old Stagecoach and The Cranberry Harvest. He also painted portraits of presidents and writers, and was a co-founder of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He married Elizabeth Buckley in 1869. He died in New York on 5 April 1906.

Style and Subjects

Johnson was a realist who painted ordinary people as individuals, not types. His careful use of a single light source and warm, glowing shadows comes from the Dutch masters he studied in The Hague.

His subjects range from rural work, such as harvesting, husking corn and maple sugaring, to family interiors, children at play and formal portraits. His late Nantucket scenes have a broader, sunnier touch, with echoes of Jean-François Millet.

Famous Works

• Negro Life at the South (1859), New-York Historical Society. Enslaved people in a Washington backyard, the painting that made his name.
• A Ride for Liberty, The Fugitive Slaves (1860s), Brooklyn Museum. A family on horseback riding toward freedom during the Civil War.
• The Lord Is My Shepherd (1863), Smithsonian American Art Museum. A man reading his Bible by the light of a window.
• Christmas-Time, The Blodgett Family (1864), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. A wealthy New York family celebrating Christmas in their parlour.
• The Old Stagecoach (1871), Milwaukee Art Museum. Children playing on an abandoned coach he had sketched in the Catskills.
• The Girl I Left Behind Me (1875), Smithsonian American Art Museum. A girl with schoolbooks stands on a windswept hilltop.
• The Cranberry Harvest, Island of Nantucket (1880), Timken Museum of Art, San Diego. Families picking cranberries on the open moor.

Decorating with Johnson Prints

Johnson's New England scenes suit farmhouse, cottage and traditional interiors: kitchens, dining rooms and family rooms with wood floors and warm colours. Husking Bee, Island of Nantucket or The Old Stagecoach makes a cheerful focal point.

His quieter interiors and portraits, such as Winding Yarn, fit a study, reading room or bedroom. A Ride for Liberty and his Civil War scenes are strong choices for a library or hallway.

FAQ

Why was Eastman Johnson called "the American Rembrandt"?

He studied the seventeenth-century Dutch masters in The Hague, and his warm light and careful shadows recalled Rembrandt's work.

What is Eastman Johnson's most famous painting?

Negro Life at the South (1859), popularly called Old Kentucky Home, made his reputation. The Old Stagecoach and A Ride for Liberty are also famous.

Did Eastman Johnson help found the Metropolitan Museum of Art?

Yes. He was one of the co-founders of the Met, and his name is inscribed at its entrance.

Who did Eastman Johnson paint?

Besides everyday people, he painted prominent Americans such as Abraham Lincoln, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and presidents including Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison.

Where can I see Eastman Johnson's paintings?

Works are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Milwaukee Art Museum and the New-York Historical Society.

Related Artists

• Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze: his teacher in Düsseldorf
• Thomas Couture: his teacher in Paris
• Jean-François Millet: French painter of rural work whose influence shows in his Nantucket scenes
• Winslow Homer: American painter of everyday life in the same era
• John George Brown: American genre painter of the same era