Buffie Johnson's canvases are witness to her creative process from the world's largest abstract mural in the Astor Theatre in the 50's, to her gestural paintings of the 60's, her monumental plant images of the 70's, and then her numbering series of the 90's that explores the power that arises from zero. Each painting retained her expressionist energy, brushstrokes, and texture.

During a turbulent childhood, Buffie Johnson was shuffled between parents, sent to a convent, and finally ended up with relatives in Massachusetts. At age eight she began painting her "Spirits Of" series. The spirits included the sun, moon, winds, earth, sky, and stars. The Cosmic Goddess and the cyclical nature of life would become a theme and influence on her work throughout her life.

She began regular studies, which included courses in art in the 1920's. In the 30's, she traveled to Paris to study with Francis Picabia and Stanley William Hayter. Buffie's friends in the early 1940’s included Tony Smith, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko, for whom Buffie arranged his first gallery. During the height of Abstract Expressionism her circle also involved Lee Krasner, Willem DeKooning, and Robert Motherwell. By the 1950's, when "you paint like a man" was the biggest compliment a woman could receive, Buffie felt she was surrounded by an anti-female energy from the other artists.

Always striving to represent divine female power even when met with resistance and discouragement, Buffie Johnson herself embodies that very power. An extraordinary woman, who has lived her entire life producing and celebrating art, Buffie has blazed a trail for artists and women alike. After nearly a century, the wisdom and body of work that Buffie offers is unparalleled in quality and spiritual intensity.

"American Transcendentalists are both singular and few, and it is among the few, and at a well defined spiritual distance from other artists of her generation, that Buffie Johnson lives." -Horace Gregory

Permanent Collections
The National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian, Washington, D.C.       
The National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian, Washington, D.C.
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
San Francisco Museum of Art, CA
Institution, Washington, D.C
Boston Museum of Fine Arts, MA
Yale University Art Gallery, CT
Baltimore Museum, MD
Fine Arts Museum of Cincinnati, OH
Rhode Island School of Design, RI
University of Michigan Museum, MI
University of New Mexico Art Museum, NM
Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute
New York University Art Collection, NY
Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Cornell University, NY
Newark Museum, NJ
Santa Barbara Museum, CA
Israel Museum
Walker Art Center, MN
Whitney Museum of American Art, NY
Huntington Art Gallery at University of Texas at Austin, TX
The Neuberger Museum of Art at the State University of New York at Purchase, NY
Ciba-Geigy Corporation, NY
International Nickel Company, NY
City Investing Corporation
New Orleans Museum of Art, LA
The Brooklyn Museum of Art. NY
The Guggenheim Museum of Art, NY
Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR

Buffie Johnson The Age of the Fish, 1964 Oil on canvas, 36 ¼” x 42 ¼”
Buffie Johnson Aion II No. 57, 1965 Oil on canvas, 30" x 25"