Johnson, Lucas (1940-2002)
Found 1 Works by this Artist
(1940-2002)
Houston, Texas
Lucas Johnson
Biography
Lucas Johnson (1940-2002) was born in Hartford, Connecticut and raised in
southern California. He studied marine biology at the University of California and
by the age of 20 he began traveling across the county. He lived in New Orleans,
New York and in 1962 moved to Mexico City, which he immediately knew was
his home. He lived there for a decade and was embraced by the young
generation of Mexican artists who followed in the footsteps of the muralists Jose
Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros. After a year Lucas
began to exhibit in galleries and cultural institutions in the company of prominent
Mexican artists such as Jose Luis Cuevas.
Lucas was represented by Galeria de Arte Misrachi in Mexico City, where he met
his wife, Patricia Covo Johnson, who worked there and who he married in 1971.
Two years later the two moved to Houston, Texas, where Lucas had been
exhibiting his work with David Gallery until it closed in 1971. Patricia opened
Covo de longh Gallery and Lucas showed with both her and Moody Gallery. She
closed the gallery in 1978 and Lucas continued to work with Moody Gallery for
nearly 25 years until he died in 2002.
His work is part of museum collections including The Menil Collection, Houston,
Texas; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; Jose Luis Cuevas Museum of
Drawings, Mexico, D.F.; Toledo Museum, Oaxaca, Mexico; Museum of Modern
Art, Tel-Aviv, Israel; National Museum, Warsaw, Poland; Brooklyn Museum,
Brooklyn, New York; and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California. He
has exhibited internationally including at the Serpentine Gallery in London in
1987 where his "Drawings from the Estuary Series” was exhibited. His work has
also been included in many museum exhibitions including at the Contemporary
Arts Museum, Houston in 1994.
In 2006 the Houston Artists Fund published the book, The Art and Life of Lucas
Johnson with a preface by Walter Hopps, the founding curator of the Menil
Collection, an essay by art historian Edmund P. Pillsbury, and a chronology by
Patricia Covo Johnson.
http://www.moodygallery.com/Artists/Johnson/Lucas.html