Marilynn Johnson, Curator & Educator, 88

ROCKLEDGE, FLA. — Marilynn Johnson, curator and educator, died in Florida on November 3, 2022 she was 88 a long time aged. She was born in Elizabeth, N.J., and graduated with honors from Duke University. She received a Master’s diploma in Early American Society from the Winterthur Museum/College of Delaware. Following completing her degree, she was awarded a Chester Dale Fellowship in the American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork in advance of signing up for the curatorial personnel. Performing with Berry Tracy, the American Wing’s chairman, she performed a pivotal purpose in the revolutionary exhibition “19th-Century The us,” which celebrated the museum’s centennial in 1970. Johnson wrote the home furnishings entries for the accompanying catalog. The exhibition and publication affected generations of American museum curators and collectors in fostering an appreciation of Nineteenth Century furniture and other decorative arts.

During her time at the museum, Johnson produced sizeable acquisitions and structured added exhibitions, which includes “12 Good Quilts from the American Wing” (1974). Between Johnson’s most considerable acquisitions for the Metropolitan Museum had been the Herter Brothers library table from the William H. Vanderbilt dwelling and the 4-columned loggia from Laurelton Corridor, Louis C. Tiffany’s place estate in Oyster Bay, put in in the American Wing’s Charles Engelhard Courtroom in 1978.

Johnson’s first publication was her 1968 short article for the Winterthur Portfolio on “John Hewitt, Cabinetmaker,” based mostly on her Winterthur thesis. Her thesis matter reflected a lifelong interest in American Federal home furniture. A proficient author, she published content articles in this kind of periodicals as Household & Back garden, Apollo, Nineteenth Century, and The Magazine Antiques.

Johnson ongoing to establish the museum’s collection of later Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century American household furniture. She was an early advocate for American Arts and Crafts style, buying important will work from Gustav Stickley’s home in Parsippany-Troy Hills, N.J. She also initiated the development of a Nineteenth Century revolutionary furnishings collection.

Following her curatorial profession in the American Wing, Johnson turned curator of Gracie Mansion, the formal home of the Mayor of New York Town considering the fact that 1942, and below the auspices of the Gracie Mansion Conservancy, oversaw its big restoration between 1981 and 1984. She labored carefully with her associate Lisa Krieger to adapt the Federal-design and style house to modern use, sourcing time period furnishings and grounding its areas and finishes in historic sources, with a target on the history of New York City.

Johnson joined the curatorial staff doing work on exhibition and catalog “In Pursuit of Beauty: People in america and the Aesthetic Motion,” structured by the Metropolitan in 1986. In addition to her function as a advisor, she authored two catalog essays, “The Suave Interior” and “Art Household furniture: Wedding ceremony the Lovely to the Handy.”

In 1985, Johnson grew to become the chairman of the Division of Museum Scientific studies at the Manner Institute of Technology (Suit) in New York, exactly where she led a recently instituted two-year graduate system concentrating on the two European and American ornamental arts from 1850 to the existing. She oversaw the progress of an formidable curriculum which bundled classes in conservation as perfectly as curatorial programs on writing exhibition catalogs, investigating and mounting objects for screen. She also oversaw the first enhancement of a decorative arts analyze selection.

Subsequent her retirement from Match, Johnson curated the traveling exhibition, “Louis Comfort Tiffany: Artist for the Ages,” for Exhibitions Intercontinental, which opened at the Seattle Artwork Museum in 2005 and traveled to the Toledo Museum of Artwork, the Dallas Museum of Fantastic Arts, and the Carnegie Museum of Artwork. She also wrote its handsome and scholarly catalog, which included a amount of lesser-recognised performs.

Marilynn Johnson was both a mentor and a purpose product. She possessed a amazing eye for top quality and style and design, pioneered new avenues of collecting, and was a gifted writer. As both of those a curator and teacher, she was a lot admired by many in the industry of American decorative arts.

Johnson is survived by her daughter, Lianne Lissauer, and 4 grandchildren.

Memorial donations designated for American Ornamental Arts at The Metropolitan Museum of Art can be manufactured to the notice of Kate Thompson, [email protected].