David Johnson's Housatonic River

Christmas has come early to the Cornwall Historical Society! We are delighted to share the most recent donation to our collection--a wonderful oil painting of the Housatonic River at West Cornwall by David Johnson (1827-1908).

David Johnson, Housatonic River at West Cornwall, 1870s.

Johnson was born and raised in New York City and began his art career by painting landscapes in the Catskills, studying with Jasper Crospsey. Johnson joined the National Academy of Design in 1859 and continued traveling in the Northeast, painting landscapes in the White Mountains, at Lake George, and in central New York state. He painted at West Cornwall and other Connecticut locations during the 1870s.

Detail showing a man fishing and smoking a pipe.

Johnson won a first-class medal for art at the 1876 Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia and an award from the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics Association of Boston in 1878. He exhibit a painting of the Housatonic River at the Paris Salon of 1877.

Detail showing two people on the opposite bank of the river, possibly on a boat.

Reverse of the painting, showing Johnson's signature and the painting's title.

Another painting of West Cornwall, done in 1875 by David Johnson, is in the collection of the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, CT.