Ralph Johnson
1925–1994

Ralph Johnson was a highly inventive, maverick character. One of the earliest members of the Department of Art at UC Davis, he always maintained an independent and unique position as an artist and showed a dedication and serious commitment to teaching.

Born in 1925, Ralph was reared on his family's farm near Vancouver, Washington. He served in the Navy during World War II, and following the war, began to pursue a pre-engineering degree at Chaffey College in Ontario, California. His growing interest in art, however, prompted him to apply to UC Berkeley, where he earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in art and later taught drawing courses.

Ralph joined the new art department at UC Davis in 1957 and retired in 1988. He served as department chair from 1981 to 1983. Until the late 1960s, Johnson was known primarily for his paintings, which ranged from geometric abstractions based on natural forms to more recognizable subjects enveloped within almost hallucinatory qualities of mood and color. In 1959, he received the first place award in painting at the California State Fair, which led to controversy in local newspapers as to “which way is up in modern painting.”

In the late 1950s, due to the needs of the new art department, Ralph taught sculpture. Teaching the sculpture courses proved pivotal in Johnson's life. It allowed him, even while he continued to paint, to explore this new medium, which he did in an imaginative and highly crafted way.

Except for several series of wonderful small watercolors that were done in Ireland in the years before his retirement, Johnson had moved almost entirely to sculpture by the 1970s. Working primarily in wood, he created a significant body of work for which he received widespread attention and recognition. His sculpture, usually based on furniture forms and meticulously crafted, became increasingly invested with his wit, humor, love of irony, and piercing intellect.

The recipient of a number of prizes and awards, Johnson was impatient with the art scene and marketplace, but worked constantly with genuineness and passion. In many ways a solitary man, he was a good cook, loved jokes, and enjoyed socializing with family, friends, fellow faculty, and students.

After retirement from teaching, Johnson's dialogue with sculptural expression seemed to become even deeper and more personal, yet his work remained profoundly affecting and accessible in its content, meaning, and structure.

Johnson was diagnosed with cancer in the early 1990s. He died at home in Trinidad, California, on March 23, 1994.