Sue Johnson

Biography

Sue Johnson is a visual artist living and working in Richmond, VA and St. Mary’s City, MD. She earned an MFA in Painting and Printmaking from Columbia University, a BFA in Painting from Syracuse University magna cum laude and studied painting in London and Florence with Syracuse University. Before coming to St. Mary’s in 1993, she was the Coordinator for Triangle Artists’ Workshop, Director of The Lincoln Center Gallery at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and taught at the Herron School of Art/Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis, Marymount Manhattan College, and Parsons School of Design. While at St. Mary’s College Johnson has served as the Steven Muller Distinguished Professor of the Arts (2003-07) and was awarded the Norton T. Dodge Award for Outstanding Creative and Scholarly Achievement (2006). Johnson has served as Department Chair of the Art & Art History Department (2002-06), and Coordinator of the Environmental Studies Program (2013-17). Johnson’s work has been the subject of over forty one-person exhibitions in the USA and England at venues that include the Tweed Museum of Art, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Jan Cicero Gallery, Eleanor D. Wilson Museum of Hollins University, Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford, Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum, The University of Memphis, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Midwest Museum of American Art, Swarthmore College, Anderson Gallery, Virginia Commonwealth University, Carlton College, The Rosenbach Museum and Library, and the University of Richmond Museums. Grants include awards from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts/Mid Atlantic Foundation Fellowship, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Visual Arts Fellowship, the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, Tenot Foundation and four Individual Artist Awards from the Maryland State Arts Council. Selected residency fellowships include the Arts/Industry Program, John Michael Kohler Art Center, Mac Dowell, Millay Colony, Art Omi, Frans Masereel Centrum, Sam and Adele Golden Foundation Residency, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, City of Salzburg/Salzburg Kunstlerhaus Residency Fellowship, Scuola Internazionale di Grafica Venezia, Jentel Foundation, CAMAC/Centre D’Art Marnay Art Centre, I-Park Foundation, and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre. Professor Johnson has been awarded residential research fellowships by the American Philosophical Society, the American Antiquarian Society and Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library. In 2010-11 Johnson served as Visiting Scholar in Residence at the Centre for Medieval & Renaissance Studies in Oxford, England and has been a Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome in 2011 and 2015. Reviews of her work have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Partisan Review, The New Art Examiner, and Art Papers. Her work is in numerous public collections including the Muscarelle Museum of Art, MOMA/Franklin Furnace Archive, Yale University Libraries, U.S. Embassy Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Smithsonian American Art Museum Libraries, Prudential Life Insurance Co., Bristol-Myers/Squibb, Tweed Museum of Art, Maier Museum of Art, Bucknell University, Francis J. Greenburger Foundation, among many others.

Recent and Upcoming Exhibitions:

‘Selections from Hall of Portraits from The History of Machines’, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA (Aug 14, 2020 – June 1, 2021); ‘New Works from Hall of Portraits from The History of Machines’ guest curated by Jaynelle Hazard, Workhouse Arts Center, Lorton, VA (March 20 – June 6, 2021); ‘Amplify’, Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Virginia Beach, VA (July 17 – October 24, 2021); Creative Research: Sue Johnson, Ebony Kenney and Johan Lowie, Stevenson University, Owings Mills, MD (September 20 - November 14, 2021), ‘Hall of Portraits from The History of Machines’, VisArts, Gibbs Street Gallery, Rockville, MD (September 11, 2020 – January 3, 2021); ‘Women with Vision: Masterworks from the Permanent Collection’, Muscarelle Museum of Art, The College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA (Feb. 10 – May 13, 2018)

Honors & Awards

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Professional Visual Art Fellowship 2020-21, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation Fellow (Millay Arts) 2020-21, Tenot Foundation Fellowship, CAMAC/Centre D’Art Marnay Art Centre, France 2011, Scholar-in-Residence, Centre for Medieval & Renaissance Studies, Oxford 2010-11, Maryland State Arts Council, Individual Artist Award (Crafts) 2009, Maryland State Arts Council, Individual Artist Award (Works on Paper) 2008, Norton T. Dodge Award for Outstanding Scholarly and Creative Achievement (SMCM) 2006, Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award (Sculpture/Installation) 2005, Steven Muller Distinguished Professor of the Arts (rotating endowed chair) 2003-07, Pollock-Krasner Foundation Fellowship 1998, Maryland State Arts Council, Individual Artist Award (Painting) 1995, NEA Fellowship in Painting/Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation Fellowship 1994, Outstanding Faculty of the Year, Herron School of Art, I.U.P.U.I. Indianapolis, IN 1985, New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship (Mixed Media) 1994