Ben Johnson (born 24 August 1946) is a British painter, known for his series of large, detailed

cityscape In the visual arts, a cityscape (urban landscape) is an artistic representation, such as a painting, drawing, print or photograph, of the physical aspects of a city or urban area. It is the urban equivalent of a landscape. ''Townscape'' is ...

Life and work

Ben Johnson was born in

Llandudno Llandudno (, ) is a seaside resort, town and community (Wales), community in Conwy County Borough, Wales, located on the Creuddyn peninsula, which protrudes into the Irish Sea. In the 2021 United Kingdom census, 2021 UK census, the community � ...

, Wales, in 1946. He studied at the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public university, public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City, London, White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design uni ...

and has lived and worked in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

since 1965. His first solo exhibition was at the Wickesham Gallery,

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

, in 1969 immediately after graduating from the Royal College. He is known for his paintings based on architectural spaces and his large-scale, intricately detailed cityscape paintings, which include panoramas of

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

and, most recently, his view of London which was completed as part of a residency at the

National Gallery The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of more than 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current di ...

, London, in 2010. Over the past 46 years he has exhibited in galleries and museums across the world, including the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; the

Walker Art Gallery The Walker Art Gallery is an art gallery in Liverpool, which houses one of the largest art collections in England outside London. It is part of the National Museums Liverpool group. History The Walker Art Gallery's collection dates from 1819 ...

, Liverpool; the

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. The museum is based in the Art Institute of Chicago Building in Chicago's Grant Park (Chicago), Grant Park. Its collection, stewa ...

;

Kunsthalle Tübingen Kunsthalle Tübingen is an art museum in the university town of Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It was founded (and the erection of its building financed) in 1971 by Paula Zundel and Dr. Margarethe Fischer-Bosch, daughters of the industria ...

; and the

Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza The Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum (, ; named after its founder, Baron Heinrich Thyssen, Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza), or simply the Thyssen, is an art museum in Madrid, Spain, located near the Museo del Prado, Prado Museum on one of the city ...

, Madrid. At the first Venice Architecture Biennale in 1991,

Norman Foster Norman Robert Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank (born 1 June 1935) is an English architect. Closely associated with the development of high-tech architecture, Lord Foster is recognised as a key figure in British modernist architecture. Hi ...

portrayed his work solely through Johnson's images, before Johnson's work was included in Foster's installation at the 2012 biennale. His work is part of a travelling exhibition currently touring museum venues in Europe, and the first retrospective exhibition of his paintings was scheduled to open in September 2015 at the Southampton City Museum and Art Gallery. He has undertaken commissions for the

Royal Institute of British Architects The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally, founded for the advancement of architecture under its royal charter granted in 1837, three suppl ...

the British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

and

National Museums Liverpool National Museums Liverpool, formerly National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside, comprises several museums and art galleries in and around Liverpool in Merseyside, England. All the museums and galleries in the group have free admission. The mu ...

as well as for IBM, HSBC, JP Morgan, British Steel, Hong Kong Telecommunications among others. Panorama of Jerusalem - Khalili

In 2000, the collector and philanthropist Nasser D. Khalili commissioned a set of five paintings titled "House of Peace", depicting spiritual sites of

, intended to promote harmony between

Abrahamic religions The term Abrahamic religions is used to group together monotheistic religions revering the Biblical figure Abraham, namely Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The religions share doctrinal, historical, and geographic overlap that contrasts them wit ...

. His work is included in the permanent collections of museums worldwide, including the

Victoria & Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen ...

, London; the

Centre Georges Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...

, Paris; the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

, New York; the Regional Services Museum, Hong Kong; and the

Government Art Collection The Government Art Collection (GAC) is the collection of artworks owned by the UK government and administered by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). The GAC's artworks are used to decorate major government buildings in the UK and ...

. As of 2014, Johnson has been exploring the ageing and scarring of architecture and, in tandem, investigating geometry and the sacred embodied in Islamic architecture. A second solo exhibition at Alan Cristea Gallery opened in May 2014. In October 2015, Johnson collected an honorary fellowship from Wrexham’s

Glyndŵr University Wrexham University (; ) is a public university in the north-east of Wales, with campuses in Wrexham, Northop and St Asaph. It offers both undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, as well as professional courses. The university had students in ...

The Liverpool Cityscape

The Liverpool Cityscape comprises 170 hectares of the city, a near bird’s-eye perspective. It encompasses several thousand individual buildings and took Johnson and up to 11 assistants 24,000 person hours to complete it. In making The Liverpool Cityscape, Johnson explored the city, (taking over 3000 reference photographs) considered alternative viewpoints, consulted with architects and historians, as well as the people of Liverpool, and absorbed the city’s distinctive atmosphere. Thousands of detailed drawings were produced before the execution of the painting in minute detail. During February and March 2008 over 51,000 people came to see Ben work on the painting at the Walker Art Gallery in a specially created studio. A live web-cam showing his residency in the Walker was set up to enable the World to watch the creation of the painting online. The resulting exhibition had over 250,000 visits. The Liverpool Cityscape is permanently on display in the Skylight Gallery of the ne
Museum of Liverpool

Personal life

Whilst at the Royal College of Art, Johnson met Sheila Kellehar, whom he later married. The couple has two sons Jamie Jay Johnson and Charlie Johnson.

Paintings

File:'Mirador_de_Lindaraja',_Ben_Johnson,_2013,_Acrylic_on_canvas,_220_x_220_cm.jpg, 'Mirador de Lindaraja', Ben Johnson, 2013, Acrylic on canvas, 220 x 220 cm File:'Room_of_the_Niobids',_2012,_Acrylic_on_canvas,_180_x_252_cm.jpg, 'Room of the Niobids', 2012, Acrylic on canvas, 180 x 252 cm File:'Reflections_on_Past_and_Present,_Paris',_Ben_Johnson,_1996,_Acrylic_on_canvas,_254_x_203cm.jpg, 'Reflections on Past and Present, Paris', Ben Johnson, 1996, Acrylic on canvas, 254 x 203 cm File:'Reading_Between_the_Lines',_Ben_Johnson,_1997,_Acrylic_on_canvas,_152_x_229cm.jpg, 'Reading Between the Lines', Ben Johnson, 1997, Acrylic on canvas, 152 x 229 cm File:'Patio de Los Arrayanes' by Ben Johnson viewed by local children in Southampton City Art Gallery.JPG, Local school children view Ben Johnson's painting 'Patio de Los Arrayanes' at retrospective at Southampton City Art Gallery.

Works in Public Collections

, Liverpool * Boymans-van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam * The

British Council The British Council is a British organisation specialising in international cultural and educational opportunities. It works in over 100 countries: promoting a wider knowledge of the United Kingdom and the English language (and the Welsh lang ...

, London * The Contemporary Arts Society, London *

De Beers The De Beers Group is a South African–British corporation that specializes in the diamond industry, including mining, exploitation, retail, inscription, grading, trading and industrial diamond manufacturing. The company is active in open-pi ...

/CSO Collection, London *

, London *

Glasgow Museums Glasgow Museums is the group of museums and galleries owned by the City of Glasgow, Scotland. They hold about 1.6 million objects including over 60,000 art works, over 200,000 items in the human history collections, over 21,000 items relating to ...

, Glasgow *

Whitworth Art Gallery The Whitworth is an art gallery in Manchester, England, containing over 60,000 items in its collection. The gallery is located in Whitworth Park and is part of the University of Manchester. In 2015, the Whitworth reopened after it was transfor ...

, Manchester *

, Paris *

, London * Deutsche Bank * British Petroleum *

Guildhall Art Gallery The Guildhall Art Gallery houses the art collection of the City of London, England. The museum is located in the Moorgate area of the City of London. It is a stone building in a semi-Gothic style intended to be sympathetic to the historic Guil ...

, Corporation of London * Special Administrative Regional Government of Hong Kong, New Convention & Exhibition Centre, Hong Kong * Regional Services Council Museum, Hong Kong *

Museum of London London Museum (known from 1976 to 2024 as the Museum of London) is a museum in London, covering the history of the city from prehistoric to modern times, with a particular focus on social history. The Museum of London was formed in 1976 by ama ...

* The

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

* The

Solo exhibitions

* 2015 "Spirit of Place: Paintings from 1969 to the present", Southampton City Art Gallery, Southampton * 2010–11 "Modern Perspectives", National Gallery, London * 2010 “Ben Johnson Paintings,” Alan Cristea Gallery, London * 2008 "Ben Johnson's Liverpool Cityscape 2008 and the World Panorama Series," Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool * 2008 Artist in Residence, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool * 2002 "Still Time," Blains Fine Art, London * 2001 "Jerusalem, The Eternal City," Chester Beatty Museum, Dublin

Selected group exhibitions

* 2012–14 Travelling exhibition: “Photorealism” Kunsthalle Tübingen, Germany; Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Spain; Kunstmuseum Thun, Switzerland; Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, UK; Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, Netherlands; World Cultural Heritage Völklinger Hütte, Germany * 2012 “Beyond Reality, British Painting Today” Galerie Rudolfinum, Prague * 2012 Contributed to Norman Foster installation, Venice Biennale, Venice

Notes and references

External links

Studio International Interview, 'Time Past, Time Present' at Alan Cristea Gallery, 2014
Ben Johnson
Artist's website
Alan Cristea Gallery
available works from Alan Cristea Gallery
Bohun Gallery
available works from Bohun Gallery, Henley on Thames
"Still small voice of calm"
article by

Jonathan Glancey Jonathan Glancey, is an architectural critic and writer who was the architecture and design editor at ''The Guardian'', a position he held from 1997 to February 2012. He previously held the same post at ''The Independent''. He also has been in ...

. ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'', Saturday 9 March 2002
Articles and Reviews
{{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Ben 20th-century Welsh painters 21st-century Welsh painters 21st-century Welsh male artists 21st-century British male artists People from Llandudno 1946 births Living people Welsh male painters 20th-century Welsh male artists