biography of John R. JOHNSTON (1826-1895)

Birth place: Ohio

Addresses: Cincinnati (OH), active c.1842 to c.1853; Baltimore (MD), from 1856-72

Profession: Portrait, historical, and landscape painter, sculptor

Studied: possibly with Frederick Franks, Cincinnati

Work: Maryland Hist. Soc.

Comments: Assisted Henry Lewis (see entry) with the latter's Mississippi panorama in 1848-49. Became one of the leading portraitists in Baltimore. Two Virginia landscapes are known, a view in Rockbridge County, 1871 and a view along the Rappahannock River, 1962.

Sources: G&W; 7 Census (1850), Ohio, XX, 656; 8 Census (1860), Md., V, 504; Cincinnati CD 1850-53; Cist, Cincinnati in 1851; Arrington, Nauvoo Temple," Chap. 8; Baltimore CD 1858-72; Pleasants, 250 Years of Painting in Maryland, 11; Antiques, 32 (Aug. 1937), 84, repro.; Rutledge, "Portraits Painted Before 1900." More recently, see Gerdts, Art Across America, vol. 1:321, who cites "John R. Johnston, "Cosmopolitan Art Journal," 3 (September 1859): 176-78; Hageman, 118; Wright, Artists in Virgina Before 1900. "