Artist Talk with David Johnson, Moderated by Lewis Watts
Tuesday October 13, 2020
6:00 – 7:30 PM PDT
“David Johnson is part of the "Golden Decade of Photography".
Positive Negatives was shown at numerous film festivals and public events during 2011, including The San Francisco International Women's Film Festival, the San Diego Black Film Festival, The Sacramento International Film Festival, the Tiburon Film Festival and the Langston Hughes African American Film Festival.” - From Positive Negatives: The Photography of David Johnson by Mindy Steiner
On Tuesday, October 13th SF Camerawork shared a special recorded conversation with David Johnson, moderated by Lewis Watts. David Johnson discussed his life and work, including what it was like photographing the cultural life of San Francisco’s Fillmore District in the 1940s and 1950s.
ABOUT DAVID JOHNSON
Photographer David Johnson, age 94, has been involved in the San Francisco community since attending the California School of Fine Arts (now SFAI) where he studied with Ansel Adams. He later worked for the Bay Area Urban League, and in 1970 was appointed to the Citizens Committee for the Haight-Ashbury District by Mayor Alioto. He worked at the UC Medical Center and organized the “Black Caucus” to help integrate higher level opportunities for minorities, for which he received commendation from Chancellor Philip Lee.
Mr. Johnson, is an active Civil Rights personality, who photographed the March on Washington, the riots in Watts in Los Angeles, and documented the life of African-Americans in San Francisco. His photographs are in the Library of Congress and KQED has used his images in their Peabody Award winning documentaries: The Fillmore, Spark, and Common Ground. He was President of the SF African American Art & Cultural Society. The UC Berkeley Bancroft Library acquired Mr. Johnson’s archival collection and Jack Von Ewu, Head Curator has stated that the “David Johnson Collection” is the most important African American collection, the Bancroft has received in the last 18 years.”
ABOUT LEWIS WATTS
Lewis Watts is a photographer, archivist/curator, visual historian and Professor Emeritus of Art at UC Santa Cruz. Before that, he taught at UC Berkeley. His research and artwork centers around the “cultural landscape” primarily in communities in the African diaspora. Among his publications are “Harlem of the West: The San Francisco Fillmore Jazz Era”, co-authored with Elizabeth Pepin Silva, published by Chronicle Books 2006 and Heyday Books 2020. He is the author of “New Orleans Suite: Music and Culture in Transition” UC Press 2013 and “Portraits” Edition One Books 2020. His work has been exhibited at and is in the collections of The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Citè de La Musique, Paris, France, The Berkeley Museum, Autograph London, The Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, The Oakland Museum of California, The Special Collections of the McHenry Library, UC Santa Cruz, The Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase NY, The Amistad Center for Art and Culture, Hartford, Conn, Light Work, Syracuse NY, The Paul Sack Collection, San Francisco, The Art Mill Horaždovice Czech Republic, McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, San Francisco and the Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley among others. He is represented by the Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco.
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