About the Artist
Barry Woods Johnston is a consummate artist who has spent a lifetime perfecting his knowledge of the human forms so they may be placed in service of rich rhythms and lucid ideas. An accomplished pianist, he translates harmony and melodic flow into the visual language of his most celebrated works. The balance of his compositions may reflect his training as an architect. The tension that animates his positive and negative spaces remains wholly rational without any sacrifice of their immediacy or vigor. A biographical sketch can only begin to explain some of the most provocative and sincerely felt sculpture to be presented on the contemporary scene.
Johnston began the formal study of sculpture under Jose de Creef at the Art Students League in 1963, continuing with Walter Hancock, Harry Rosen and Tony Greenwood at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts from 1964 to 1966. He did a tour of duty in Vietnam in 1967–1968. In 1969 Johnston graduated with a 5 year B.S. Degree in Architecture from Georgia Tech, then move to Europe to study philosophy with Francis Schaeffer in Switzerland. From 1970–1972 he lived in Italy, studying figure drawing with Madame Simi, plaster casting with Enzo Cardini, and stone carving at Romanelli Studios. He has returned to Italy throughout his career, though his home and studio are in Baltimore, Maryland.
His work has been the recipient of virtually every important peer award and medal, including the Cassidy Memorial Award, the Leonard J. Meiselman Award (multiple times), the Lindsay Morris Memorial Prize, the Chaim Gross Foundation Award, the National Arts Club’s Best In Show prize and their President’s Award, the Eliot Liskin Award (multiple times) and many others.