{"product_id":"vintage-dorie-johnson-seascape-oil-on-canvas-framed-c-1970-1990","title":"Vintage Dorie Johnson Seascape Oil on Canvas, Framed, c. 1970–1990","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAn original oil on canvas of a rocky coastline under a breaking sky. A pale sun sits behind a bank of cloud and throws a broad column of yellow light down the centre of the composition, the only warmth in a painting otherwise built from teal, deep green and near-black. A dark headland runs across the middle distance. Below it the water is worked in long horizontal strokes of green over blue, and surf breaks white against a rocky outcrop of ochre and rust at the lower right. Gulls are set into the sky in a few pale marks.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe handling changes with the subject. Sky and water are brushed thin and blended, so the weave of the canvas reads through them. The rocks are laid on thick with a knife, standing well proud of the surface in ridges and slabs that catch raking light and cast their own shadows. Held at an angle the headland is genuinely three-dimensional.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSigned lower left in red-brown block capitals, DORIE JOHNSON.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is set in a wide composition frame with acanthus scrolls, roses and a cross-hatched ground, painted white.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe signature reads DORIE JOHNSON, and that spelling matters. Doralie \"Dorie\" Johnson, 1932 to 2015, was an Arizona listed artist. Her family records her as a notable watercolour and sketch artist working in Arizona, most prolific through the 1970s and 1980s, and her subjects were not confined to the desert: recorded works include California mountain scenes alongside Arizona regionalist subjects such as the old gas station at Jerome. She has auction representation and her work continues to appear on the secondary market.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere is a second chapter that matters to anyone buying a framed picture. Through the 1990s Dorie and her husband John Johnson Jr. owned and ran Frames by Dorie, a custom framing business in Gilbert, Arizona, successful there for many years. She spent a decade of her working life choosing mouldings for other people's pictures. Whether this particular frame passed through her own shop is not established and is not claimed here, but a wide antique composition moulding refinished in white is a considered choice rather than an off-the-shelf one. After her death in 2015 her daughters founded a gallery and teaching studio in her honour.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTwo qualifications are owed, and both are given plainly. The first is medium. Dorie Johnson's documented output is chiefly watercolour and drawing, and this is an oil on canvas, so the attribution rests on the signature rather than on a catalogued body of oils. The second is that a separate mid-century painter signing Doris E. Johnson worked in oil on marine subjects, which is closer to this picture in both medium and theme. That signature is a different one: Doris rather than Dorie, a middle initial present, and written in cursive, where this canvas is signed in block capitals with no initial. On the name as written the Arizona artist is the better fit, but the point is raised here rather than buried.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe canvas carries no visible date, so the dating follows the documented working life of the artist whose name is on it. On that basis it is offered as c. 1970–1990. The reverse has not been examined, and a stretcher inscription, a gallery label or a Frames by Dorie label would settle the attribution and the date together.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003ctable\u003e\n  \u003ctbody\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSigned\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDORIE JOHNSON, lower left, in red-brown block capitals\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eAttribution\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eThe name corresponds to Doralie \"Dorie\" Johnson, 1932–2015, Arizona listed artist; not documented beyond the signature\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMedium\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOil on canvas\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSubject\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCoastal seascape with headland and breaking surf\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ec. 1970–1990; frame earlier\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFrame\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eWide composition moulding with acanthus, roses and cross-hatched ground, painted white\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFramed Size\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e23 x 27 in.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCanvas Size\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e16 x 20 in.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition, painting\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSound. Paint film stable with the impasto intact and no flaking, tears or punctures found. Surface unvarnished and lightly dusty.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition, frame\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSold as found and in need of nothing unless you want it perfect. Overall fine craquelure through the white finish. Chips and losses to the ornament, most visible at the upper left rosette. The lower left mitre has opened and a section of ornament is broken away at that corner, exposing the substrate.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003c\/tbody\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eWhy It Belongs in Your Home\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe white frame is what makes this work in a modern room. An ornate gilt moulding would push a dark seascape into the nineteenth century; painted white and chipped back, the same moulding reads current, and it throws all the attention onto that column of yellow light in the middle of the picture.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHang it where it gets side light so the knife work on the rocks does what it was built to do. It is a strong single piece over a console or a bed, and it holds its own in a salon wall of mixed frames.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48075992367209,"sku":"VE-1659","price":985.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/9C2DD02F-D9DF-45E0-9650-802D16DA8AB9.jpg?v=1789730817","url":"https:\/\/viridianeclection.com\/products\/vintage-dorie-johnson-seascape-oil-on-canvas-framed-c-1970-1990","provider":"Viridian Eclection","version":"1.0","type":"link"}