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 2023-25), 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. 

Recent and Upcoming Exhibitions:

Recent solo exhibitions include "Symmetrical Bodies" at Gallery Neptune & Brown, Washington, DC (April 26-June 14, 2025),  "Symmetrical Bodies" at the Boyden Gallery, St. Mary's College of Maryland (Feb 4 - March 7, 2025), "New Work" at Atelier 8317, Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France (June 2023), "Hall of Portraits from the History of Machines" at 3S Artspace, Portsmouth, NH (May-July 2022), "Showroom: Hall of Portraits from The History of Machines" at Coker University, Hartsville, SC (Sept-Oct 2022), "Selections from Hall of Portraits from The History of Machines" at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA (Aug 14, 2020 – June 1, 2021). Her work has been included in recent group exhibitions at The Delaware Museum of Contemporary Art (Wilmington, DE), Pyramid Atlantic Art Center (Hyattsville, MD) , Collar Works (Troy, NY), and The Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art (Virginia Beach, VA). An upcoming solo exhibition "Hall of Portraits from The History of Machines" will take place at the Olin Fine Art Gallery, Washington & Jefferson College (Washington, PA) September 5 - October 12, 2025). 

Honors & Awards

Grants and fellowships include a Virginia Commission for the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship (Works on Paper) 2023, 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.

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, Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library Maker-Creator Fellowship, Cité Internationale des Arts, 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.