Rauch Bros. work inspired by W. H. Johnson

As mentioned here last week, the above image is from a new Rauch Brothers project for which we are using William H. Johnson’s work as our visual inspiration. Looking forward to diving in on this one!

A little festival news. As noted before on our Twitter page, “Q&A” will be playing at this year’s Annecy International Animation Film Festival (June 8-13). Mike and I are thrilled to be showing at this prestigious annual event and will definitely be in attendance along with many of our great NYC animation friends (Signe Baumane, Alex Budokovsky and PES are three other NYers screening this year).

William H. Johnson

For the visual aesthetic of one of our upcoming projects, Rauch Bros. is looking at the work of William H. Johnson.

Born in Florence, South Carolina in 1901, Johnson took off for Harlem in 1918 and immediately became involved in the community of artists that was beginning to bloom at that time. He was a painter of African American life and chronicled the excitement of Harlem, the experience of blacks fighting in WWII, the struggle of sharecroppers, the power of great leaders and the dignity of ordinary lives. Some of my favorite paintings of his (see Mount Calvary and Swing Low, Sweet Chariot below) put a new face on Christian traditions.

His personal history has heavy doses of tragedy: the death of his wife, wandering through Europe with all of his paintings tied to a cart, sleeping under bridges and mental illness. Much of his work has been lost or damaged because of this complicated history, his career cut relatively short, and his final years were spent in an institution. He died in 1970. Fisk University holds a great deal of his work and a major retrospective was organized by the National Museum of American Art in 1991.

I am a huge fan of his bright colors, strong, playful compositions and knack for personalities. If we can squeeze even a drop of Johnson into our work, I’d be thrilled.

Chain Gang, 1939

Jitterbugs, 1940-41

Swing Low, Sweet Chariot 1944

Li'l Sis, 1944

Mount Calvary, 1944

Moon Over Harlem, 1943-44

Underground Railroad, 1945

Three years ago I was studying abroad in Rome. It was a chance to get away from New York and my professors at St. John’s and see what kind of work I would do with that new freedom. One of the things I did was continue to keep a sketchbook that I drew in several hours a day. In Rome, that meant drawing people on the subways and trains as it had in New York (post) but I also drew churches, museums and public parks. The following images are just a few pages from one of those sketchbooks.

Michael Sporn has a really fun post about parkbenches over on his world-renowned “Splog”.  Check it out!  This is the kind of thing I like to read.  And it gives me a reason to put up a drawing of one of these NYC parkbenches which I did while researching my first film, conveniently titled “The Parkbench”.  Thanks Michael!

One of my favorite things about living in New York is the subway: it’s a great place to draw and I’ve filled up a lot of sketchbooks riding the trains.  This is the first of a continuing series of posts that will show pages from those books.