Seeking the spiritual in art, Raymond Jonson developed an abstract style of painting that was unique in pre-1940s New Mexico. While his colleagues in the Transcendentalist Painting Group similarly shared his interest in the metaphysical, Jonson alone found his means in a non-objective relationship of forms. Strongly influenced by Kandinsky, the painter moved from stylized representations of nature to formalist expressions of universal harmony. In order to achieve his aims, he became a master of materials, known for his meticulous working methods.
Born in Iowa, Jonson spent his early years moving around the country with his family, necessitated by his minister father's work. They finally settled in Portland, Oregon, in 1902, and this same year Raymond had a spiritual experience in which he sensed the presence of God. When his family's Baptist faith disappointed him, he transposed this feeling to art, to which he committed his life. When the Portland Art Association established its Museum Art School, Jonson enrolled as its first student.
His dedication led him to Chicago to study at the Academy of Fine Arts, a very good commercial school, which afforded a strong grounding in drawing. Here he met B.J.O. Nordfedlt, a Swedish immigrant, who introduced the younger Jonson to the colorist experimentation of the Fauves. The Arthur Dove exhibition and the Armory Show brought to Chicago both expanded his awareness of the emotive possibilities of modernist art movements.
From 1912 to 1917, Jonson was lighting, stage set, costume, and graphics designer for the Chicago Little Theater, America's first experimental theater. Among their bold departures was a minimalist aesthetic, which reduced the stage elements and enhanced the dramatic content with light. Devising the 9-switch dimmer board, Jonson (going by C. Raymond Johnson) became an international theater figure. He also met his wife, Vera White, secretary for the theater and poet.
On a trip to the Colorado Rockies in 1917, Jonson was moved by the power of this sublime landscape and its clarity of light. He began to consider how paint could express light -- material into immaterial. Teaching at the Chicago Art Institute, he was able to get away to the MacDowell Art Colony in 1919, and his elevated sensibilities increasingly perceived the oppressive side of city life. Believing the aim of life was toward harmony, Jonson placed new emphasis on design as a unifying principle. Reading Kandinsky's "The Art of Spiritual Harmony" further convinced him that the mission of art was to make this harmony visible.
In 1922, he spent the entire summer in Santa Fe, and his experience there filtered into his work upon returning to Chicago. When his mother supplied the money for a studio, he moved to New Mexico in 1924, building his home across the street from his friend Nordfeldt. Jonson pursued the concept of order as found in "simple basic motives of spaces and interesting variety of shapes and spaces, a balance of line direction."
In the work of the late 20s, he submits natural forms, such as mesas and even the Grand Canyon, to a dynamic patterning in which the quality of light becomes a design element. Significantly, Jonson thought that emotion could be included by creating juxtaposed rhythms within the composition. Influenced by Indian design, these paintings recall Art Deco ornamentation in the combination of organic and geometric motifs and the electric color effects.
Taking the next leap, Jonson set about purifying his work of all representation. Beginning in the thirties, he explored new ways applications of color and tonality to suggest the quality of transparency, which created the sense of different planes within one surface. Philosophically, this transparency was the artistic means to "expose the spirit of man." Carefully painting gradations, he achieved luminosity and, with colors close to each other, vibration. He eventually used an airbrush for further ethereal effects. Rather than suggest the metaphysical with subject matter, Jonson proposed an approach to painting which de-materialized the actual physical object. In 1938, he and Emil Bisttram were the core of the Transcendentalist Painters Group, which advanced these principles among other artists in Santa Fe and Taos.
As advocate and impresario, Jonson casts a long shadow. Although there was strong sentiment against it, he organized the modern wing of the Museum of New Mexico. In 1934, he painted six murals for the University of New Mexico, which began his relationship with the Albuquerque institution. For many years, he commuted there from Santa Fe but in 1950 he moved there to the gallery/studio provided. Upon his retirement in 1954, he continued to stage exhibitions, thus making the gallery a citadel of modernism in the Southwest. The building itself is a landmark of Pueblo Revival architecture, but the bequeathed Jonson collection will be moved to the university's Center for the Arts in 2008. Part of a $2.5-million restoration, this new installation will bring deserved attention to Jonson's legacy.
As a teacher, Jonson played a little know role in his transmission of abstract ideals. His best-known student is Richard Diebenkorn. The artist, more closely identified with California, once cited the personal contact with his mentor as a major factor in his development. Remembering the walls covered with tiny jars of paint, Diebenkorn observed, "his studio was like an operating room."
Education: Chicago Academy of Fine Arts; Art Institute of Chicago.
Exhibited: (partial list) Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe; National Academy of Design, New York; Minneapolis Institute of Art; Los Angeles County Museum; Houston Museum of Fine Arts; Denver Art Museum; Guggenheim Museum, New York; Cincinnati Art Museum; Philadelphia Art Alliance; Brooklyn Museum, New York; Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, Fort Worth, Texas; San Francisco Museum of Art.
Further Reading: The Art of Raymond Jonson. Ed Garmon. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1976.; Modernist Painting in New Mexico 1913-1935. Sharyn Rholfsen Udall. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1984.; Taos and Santa Fe The Artists Environment 1882-1942. Van Deren Coke. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1963.
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