Marshall Johnson (1850-1921)

Born and raised in Boston, Marshall Johnson set sail for South America aboard the ship Sunbeam at age of eighteen. Tragically, the ship caught fire and burned at sea, and Johnson was one of only twelve survivors. This harrowing experience did not dampen Johnson’s enthusiasm for the ocean, however; he returned to Boston and took classes at the Lowell Institute and the Boston Art Club, and then studied painting with well-known marine artist William E. Norton. By 1884, Johnson had opened his own studio at 12 West Street in Boston and it was during this period that he developed his romantic and dramatic style of painting. In the late 1880s, he traveled to Holland, England and France to learn from their marine art.

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Upon his return, Johnson established himself in a studio on India Wharf in Boston, and became highly successful within the city’s art circles. He was a member of the Boston Art Club and exhibited his oil paintings and watercolors regularly in their annual exhibitions. He also exhibited with the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1887, with the National Academy during the late 1880s and early 1890s, and at the Art Institute of Chicago at the turn of the century. Today, he is probably best remembered for his painting of the U.S.S. Constitution, which for many years was the trademark for the New England Life Insurance Company. Just two years after Johnson’s death, the artist was remembered through a memorial exhibition held by Vose Galleries.