Biography
Jay J. Johnson resides in America's northeast and travels widely
across the North American continent. His family ancestry includes close
ties to the Maine woods, and the Atlantic seacoast of Massachusetts
(where he grew up on a wave-bound peninsula). His knowledge of
wildlife comes from traversing thousands of miles of American wilderness.
When he was just seventeen years of age he climbed all 48 of the
highest peaks in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, becoming the
youngest person to do so in one continuous trek. Since then he has
walked and paddled through virtually every environment in America
from mountain tops to river valleys to arid deserts. He has sea-kayaked
extensively along both the Pacific coast and the Atlantic coasts. He
has also hiked both the Appalachian Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail,
totaling 4700 miles. He has bicycled 3,000 miles across the
southwestern deserts of the United States; and driven many thousands
of miles more along western back-country roads in search of his wildlife
subjects. In the early 1980's he completed a solo wilderness trek
spanning sixteen months, covering 10,000 miles around America (featured
in more than fifty newspapers nationwide).
At Cornell University he studied both Art and Natural History, gaining
an in-depth scientific knowledge of his wild subjects while at the same time
learning the fundamentals of Traditional and Modern Art.
Working today in his studio, Johnson follows the time-honored tradition
of painting with oils on fine linen, capturing the movement, spirit and realism
of American wildlife. His paintings have become part of private collections
nationwide through western galleries in Arizona, California, Colorado,
Oklahoma, and Wyoming, and eastern galleries in Connecticut, Florida,
Pennsylvania, Maine, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Vermont.
