Who was Henrietta Johnston?

Magazine Antiques, Nov, 1995 by Martha R. Severens

Compounding the difficulty of identifying Johnston's teacher is her preferred medium, since pastels were not widely used.(20) Most artists used them only for either preliminary studies or as an intermediate step in the production of mezzotints. Before the end of the seventeenth century a few portraitists, including Lely, Ashfield, and Lutterel, used pastels to make replicas as well as finished portraits, but the true heyday of pastels was the eighteenth century, when artists such as Maurice Quentin de La Tour (1704-1788), Francois Boucher (1703-1770), Carriera, and John Singleton Copley (1738-1815) mastered the delicate medium.

Pastels suited Johnston's artistic sensibilities, allowing her to work on an intimate scale with a delicate touch. She could easily transport her materials to the houses of her patrons, who were also her social equals - members of her husband's extended family in Ireland and later, individuals active in Saint Philip's Church and fellow Huguenots in Charleston.

The artist's habit of inscribing the backboards of her pastels with her name, the date, and the location has allowed scholars to follow her from Ireland to Charleston and even to New York City.(21) Although the place and date of her birth are still unknown, a clearer picture has emerged of America's first professional female artist and first pastellist.

1 ANTIQUES, March 1947, pp. 183-185.

2 The first exhibition dedicated to Johnston's work opened at the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in October 1991. It was accompanied by a catalogue entitled Henrietta Johnston: Who greatly helped...by drawing pictures, ed. Forsyth Alexander. The standard monograph is Margaret Simons Middleton, Henrietta Johnston of Charles Town, South Carolina: America's First Pastellist (Columbia, South Carolina, 1966).

3 Year Book, 1899, City of Charleston (Charleston, South Carolina, n.d.), pp. 138-139.

4 "The First Woman Painter in America," International Studio, July 1927, pp. 13-20; and "Henrietta Johnston, South Carolina Pastellist," Antiquarian, September 1928, pp. 46-47.

5 ANTIQUES, December 1929, pp. 490-494.

6 Christie, Manson and Woods catalogue for the sale at Belvedere, Mullingar, County Westmeath, Ireland, July 9, 1980.

7 This suggestion is made in Henrietta Johnston: Who greatly helped, p. 7, n. 10.

8 The will is dated April 23, 1746, and was proved on June 13, 1747 (Public Record Office, London, Prob. II, 755). I am grateful to Philip Blake and to Ellen Miles at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., for assisting me with this information.

9 Letter from Crookshank, June 1986. The letters of denization dated December 16, 1687, are in the state papers of charles II, Entry Book 67, p. 14 (Greater London Record Office).

10 Cited in the Christie, Manson, and Woods catalogue for the sale at Belvedere, p. 52.

11 Letter from Francois de Beaulieu, June 16, 1994.

12 The date of Robert Dering's death and his will were lost when Irish records were destroyed in a fire in Dublin in 1922. In a letter to me dated September 25, 1991, Philip Blake wrote that he believe Dering's estate provided for his children, but not his widow.