Artworks

 Robert Ward Johnson was born in San Francisco. He received his early artistic

training at the Art Students League in New York under George Bridgman, a

classically trained instructor who emphasized drawing. Johnson studied at the

Munich Akademie and participated in World War I. After the war, he traveled to

Paris where from 1919-1928 he exhibited landscapes and figural painting

regularly at the Salon d’Automne. In the 1930s Johnson illustrated a posthumous

edition of Samuel Butler’s, The Way of All Flesh , which was edited by Theodore

Dreisser. At the end of his career, the artist returned to the Art Students League

as an instructor.

During the 1920s Johnson lived at 194 Avenue Michel Bizot in the 12th

 arrondissement, but spent much of his time in the more artistically stimulating

Montparnasse, associating with avant-garde artists such as Man Ray, Moise

Kisling, and Tsuguharu Foujita. In Montparnasse he met the dwarf Jean-Paul Le

Tarare (1899-1982) a noted actor, film director and writer. Le Tarare was the

first “little person” to achieve prominence as a dramatic actor and appeared in

some of the earliest silent movies produced in Montparnasse, including La Lys

de la vie  (1920) with Loie Fuller, L’odyssée d’un film  (1923) and La terre du

Diable  (1922). In the 1924 film La Galerie des Monstres  his co-stars included

Lois Moran, the actress who was the inspiration for the character of Rosemary

Hoyt in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night,  and Kiki (Alice Ernestine Prin)

- the “Queen of Montparnasse.” Kiki drew a portrait of Le Tarare in 1925 (fig.1).

Painted in 1922 during the height of Le Tarare’s film career, Johnson’s rendition

of the actor is a straightforward bust-length portrait. The focus is on the sitter’s

visage so there is no indication of his diminutive stature. Dressed in a somber

black coat and tie, Le Tarare directly engages the viewer, his sober visage and

pale blue eyes are framed by a full shock of wavy auburn hair. Much like Le

Tarare who, in his film career wished to be taken seriously as an actor rather

than as a sideshow entertainer, Johnson, in this portrait, by concentrating on the

sitters face, attempts to convey that depth of character. At once painterly in the

execution of the bushy head of hair, floppy tie and the facial tonalities, the work

also relies on strong line to define the nose, ears and chin. In many ways, the

bust-length, intense gaze, and crisp outline of the figure recall the haunting

portraits of Ferdinand Hodler (fig.2).

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