2022 Coeur d’Alene Art Auction / Lot 272
According to Western art historian Harold McCracken, “The March 1931 issue of the publication Progressive Arizona included a lengthy article about F. T. J.’s work by the highly regarded art critic Everett Carroll Maxwell. The whole article was complimentary, although the following two excerpts were enough to warm the heart of any artist: ‘As a painter of the romance of the Old West, F. Tenney Johnson stands wholly in a class by himself. He possesses a vision and imagination that reaches far into the past and records it upon canvas with fidelity and unusual pictorial beauty.’ The other excerpt reads: ‘An outstanding characteristic of Johnson’s work is his ability to paint moonlight, and in this field he stands preeminantly [sic] alone.’ It is significant that a number of other critics gave the same appraisal of F. T. J.’s work in similar phraseology.”
PROVENANCE
Private collection, Nevada