Lot - Ynez Johnston Woodcut "Blue Garden" (1950)

Ynez Johnston (American, 1920-2019). "Blue Garden" woodcut on paper, 1950. Edition number 8 of 10. Hand-signed and edition numbered beneath print. A 1950 woodcut on paper by Ynez Johnston titled "Blue Garden" presents a mysterious, city-like landscape where towers, symbols, and geometric forms gather around a deep central void, like a garden seen in a dream rather than in daylight. Carved with extraordinary precision, the composition reads as a dense tapestry of incised lines and interlocking shapes. Slender spires and house-like structures rise from a patterned ground, while small glyphs, eyes, and architectural fragments appear and disappear across the surface. The central oval of velvety black creates a dramatic pause in the midst of this visual abundance, giving the print its sense of orbit and inward gravity. Size of print: 24" W x 15" H (61 cm x 38.1 cm); of frame: 29.75" W x 21.75" H (75.6 cm x 55.2 cm)

Although executed in the rigorous language of woodcut, Johnston treats the block like a drawing surface, using sharp linear cuts to build a world of intricate texture and layered meaning. Subtle passages of blue, red, green, and ochre animate the dark field, suggesting stained glass, mosaic, or illuminated manuscript pages - references that align with Johnston's lifelong fascination with ancient and global visual traditions.

Created just as Johnston was gaining national attention for her printmaking, "Blue Garden" embodies the qualities critics would later celebrate: a personal mythology, a microscopic richness of detail, and a scale that feels both intimate and immense. Numbered 8 of 10, this rare early edition stands as a striking example of Johnston's ability to transform the language of print into a visionary, symbol-filled terrain.

About the artist: Ynez Johnston (American, 1920-2019) was a painter, printmaker, sculptor, and influential educator whose richly imaginative work fused modernism with the visual languages of ancient and global art. Born in Berkeley, California, she studied at the University of California, Berkeley, earning her BFA in 1941 and an MFA in 1947. A travel award in 1941 took her to Mexico, launching a lifetime of journeys that would later include Nepal, India, Cambodia, Spain, and Italy, and these experiences became central to her distinctive iconography.

Johnston developed a highly personal, intricate style populated by semi-abstract figures, animals, plants, and architectural forms set within dreamlike, mythical landscapes. Inspired by Byzantine art and the artistic traditions of Tibet, India, Mexico, and Nepal, she often incised calligraphic lines into her painted surfaces, creating compositions that feel at once ancient and vividly contemporary. Her printmaking practice was equally accomplished, spanning intaglio, woodblock, and lithography, including work produced through the Tamarind Lithography Workshop.

After early years in the San Francisco Bay Area, Johnston moved to Los Angeles in 1949 and quickly gained national recognition. She won first prize for an etching at a Los Angeles County Museum exhibition in 1950 and was selected for a New Talent presentation at the Museum of Modern Art in 1950-51. Over the decades, she exhibited widely in the United States and abroad and received major honors including a Guggenheim Fellowship (1952), a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation grant (1955-56), and two National Endowment for the Arts grants (1976, 1986). Johnston also maintained a long teaching career, working at institutions including UC Berkeley, Chouinard, and Otis.

Her work is held in more than sixty museum collections, including MoMA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, LACMA, the Art Institute of Chicago, and SFMOMA. Johnston lived and worked in Los Angeles until her death in 2019, leaving behind a body of work that treats painting as both exploration and excavation. As she wrote, "Painting is for me like a voyage into oceans known and unknown, depths and distances ultimately unfathomable."

Provenance: Private collection of important Hollywood family, collected between 1930 and 1980

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Item # 200754

Condition: Excellent. Mounted behind glass in custom matte and frame with suspension wire on verso for display. Has not been examined outside of frame, but print and frame both appear to be in excellent overall condition. Hand-signed and edition numbered beneath print.

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Lot 361

Ynez Johnston Woodcut "Blue Garden" (1950)

Ynez Johnston Woodcut "Blue Garden" (1950)

Current Bid: $350

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