J. Seward Johnson, Jr.
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Seward Johnson (born 1930), also known as J. Seward Johnson, Jr., is an American sculptor known for his trompe l'oeil bronze painted sculptures.
Examples of his work include:
- The Awakening (1980), perhaps his largest work, a 70-foot five-part sculpture located at Hains Point in Washington, DC,
- Hitchhiker (1983), a statue along the side of a road leading away from the campus of Hofstra University,
- Allow Me (1984), a statue of man holding an umbrella, located in Pioneer Courthouse Square in Portland, Oregon, and
- Déjeuner Déjà Vu (1994), located at Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, New Jersey, a three-dimensional recreation of Edouard Manet's painting, Le déjeuner sur l'herbe.
He founded the Johnson Atelier Technical Institute of Sculpture, an educational, non-profit art casting and fabrication facility, in 1974.
He was also one of the disinherited heirs to the Johnson & Johnson Corporation fortune, notorious for their very public contesting of their father's will, which left nearly all of his half-billion-dollar fortune to his wife of twelve years, a former servant. The dispute was written about in Undue Influence: The Epic Battle for the Johnson & Johnson Fortune (1993, ISBN 0688064256).
Johnson's grandson Jamie produced and directed a documentary, Born Rich (2003), which premiered at Sundance Film Festival and aired on HBO to generally favorable reviews.
External links
- The sculptor's website (http://www.sewardjohnson.com/)
- Johnson Atelier Technical Institute of Sculpture (http://www.atelier.org/)