High Peaks

African American artist William Henry Johnson grew up in poverty in South Carolina. He left for New York in 1918, where he studied art and exhibited during the Harlem Renaissance. In 1926, Johnson went to Europe, studying postimpressionism in Paris before traveling throughout the continent. He also met and married Danish textile artist Holcha Krake. "High Peaks" comes from his time spent in the Arctic Circle in Norway. This work demonstrates the expressionistic style he developed abroad, but his later work is very different, often using flat blocks of color to show folk scenes of African American life.