Edwin Boyd Johnson

After graduating, he enrolled in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1925-1930). He also studied at the National Academy of Design in New York City. The Bryan Lathrop Foreign Traveling Scholarship of $1500 (1931) enabled him to study fresco painting at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna, the Atelier de Fresque of Paris, and the Ecole Egyptienne des Beaux Arts in Alexandria, Egypt. He was a member of the Chicago Society of Artists, and during the 1930s and early 1940s, he participated in many of their exhibits. He was the recipient of several awards, among them the Joseph N. Eisendrath Prize for "Nude" in 1938 and, in 1940, the William M.R. French Memorial Gold Medal from the Art Institute Alumni Association for his painting "Mother and Child". One of those, "Mt. Kimball", hangs in the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center. While Johnson painted in both water colors and oils, he is best known for his murals, which were funded by the WPA Federal Art Project. He was an honorary member of the United States Armed Forces in World War II. After the war he took up residence in Mexico City, where he turned his artistic focus to photography. He died in 1968 in Nashville.

• Name — Edwin Boyd Johnson • Born — 1904 • Birthplace — Watertown, Tennessee • Died — 1968 • Place of death — Nashville, Tennessee • Education — School of the Art Institute of Chicago, National Academy of Design • Illustration — Airmail, a fresco painted by Johnson in 1937