Johnston’s captivating visual language evolved from an amalgamation of ancient and modern cross-cultural influences, emerging as a fully-fledged chimerical phenomenon all its own that was immutably tethered to her strange and romantic inner life.
Ynez Johnston (1920–2019) was an American painter, sculptor, printmaker and educator born in Berkeley, California. She earned her BFA in 1941 and MFA in 1947 from the University of California, Berkeley, and a 1941 travel award took her to Mexico, where she lived until 1943. She moved to Los Angeles in 1949. Over seven decades she brought imaginary lands, mythical beasts and fantastical voyages to life, drawing on Matisse and Klee as well as Byzantine art, Indian and Persian miniatures and Tibetan thangkas. Her work is in more than 100 collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago and the British Museum.
