Lucas Johnson

American, 1940–2002

ActiveTexas, United States

BiographyAmerican, born October 24, 1940, Hartford, Connecticut; died September 1, 2002, South Padre Island, TX.

Lucas Johnson, a longtime Houston artist and one of the major Texas artists of his generation, died unexpectedly on Saturday, August 31, 2002 in Rockport, TX. Born in Hartford, CT in 1940, Johnson was raised in southern California and studied marine biology at UCLA before settling in Mexico City in the early 1960s to pursue art full-time. He moved to Houston in 1973, and went on to have solo exhibitions at Moody Gallery, the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, and the Instituto de Cultura Hispanica. His work is in the collections of Massachusets Institute of Technology, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the San Antonio Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Known primarily for his drawings and paintings, Johnson was also a gifted sculptor in bronze. His work combined magic and realism and he often painted directly from nature. An avid fisherman and a true gentleman, he will be missed. [Glasstire, Texas online arts magazine, September 12, 2002]

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