Nevill Johnson RUA

Nevill Johnson (1911-1999) was born in England but relocated to Belfast in 1934. He had no formal art training but soon made contact with John Luke whom he shared a studio with for some time. After visiting exhibitions of European modernism in Paris during the 1930s, Johnson returned to Ireland greatly influenced by Surrealism and Cubism. He exhibited regularly with Victor Waddington during the 1940s, eventually relocating to Dublin to work full time as an artist and exhibiting alongside artists such as Louis le Brocquy, Colin Middleton, Gerard Dillon and Daniel O’Neill. After receiving a grant from the arts council, Johnson took a series of 2000 photographs of inner-city Dublin from 1952-53, with the negatives held in the RTE archives and New York’s MoMA. From the early 1970s to the 1990s, Johnson exhibited at the Dawson Gallery and with Tom Caldwell.

Johnson’s son, along with Eoin O'Brien, created a memoir of his writings, artwork, photographs and life in Paint the Smell of Grass, and his son also donated several of Johnson’s works to University College Dublin to establish an annual scholarship in support of aspiring artists.