One of America's most powerful African American painters, William H. Johnson (1901–1970) developed his talent along a path that took him from the southern United States to New York to Europe and back again. Born in Florence, South Carolina, he left the rural south when he was seventeen and moved to Harlem. Work as a hotel porter, short-order cook, and dock worker allowed him to save enough money to enter the art school of the National Academy of Design. When he completed the course of study there, Johnson's teacher and mentor, Charles Hawthorne, arranged financial assistance for the young artist to study in France. Johnson lived in Paris and on the southern coast of France for three years, where he absorbed the lessons of European artists and discovered his own voice as a painter.

He returned to New York in 1929, but a year later, aware of the difficulties a black artist faced in New York, he moved to a small fishing village on the coast of Denmark. There he married a Danish artist, weaver Holcha Krake. The couple lived and worked in Denmark for several years, then moved to the coast of Norway, where Johnson explored the dynamic landscape and dramatic summers of the "Land of the Midnight Sun."

Late in 1938, when World War II seemed imminent, the couple returned to New York City. Johnson took a job teaching at the Harlem Community Arts Center. The move to New York marked a decisive shift in Johnson's art. Like his younger contemporaries Jacob Lawrence and Romare Bearden, Johnson began probing black experience, drawing his imagery from memories of life in the rural south as well as from the upbeat ambience of Harlem.

In 1941, Johnson had a solo exhibition at the Alma Reed Galleries in New York, though just as success seemed likely Johnson faced tragedy—a fire in his studio in 1942 and the death of his wife less than two years later. Broken-hearted, he returned to South Carolina, seeking comfort and support from home, but then decided to return to Denmark where he and Holcha had spent happy years together. Family and friends in both Denmark and Norway noticed that Johnson's behavior had become increasingly strange, and soon thereafter he was diagnosed with a serious mental illness. He was sent back to New York and placed in a hospital, where he remained from 1947 until his death in 1970. Despite the circumstances of his late years, Johnson's life can be seen as a triumph. He created a body of work that celebrates the energy and beauty of the land and the dignity and vitality of the individual.