Artists\ Biographies on the Illustration Art Gallery
Michael Johnson biography
Studied Painting and Sculpture at York School of Art, England. Spent his early years as freelance, and worked mainly on artworks for magazines, advertising and book illustration in England and the rest of Europe. An accomplished and adaptable book and magazine illustrator with bags of experience.
Magazine illustrations include: Sunday Times, Telegraph, Observer, Woman's Own, Mirror, Harpers & Queen, Motor, Good Housekeeping, Nova, Penthouse, Stern, Bunte, Constance, Swensk Damtid Ning.
Worked for Advertising Agencies and Design Groups in London, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Stockholm, Oslo, Brussels, Amsterdam, Milan, Paris, Lyon, Marseille and Nice.
Worked with many publishers including Penguin, Pan, Granada, Collins, Fontana, Panther, TransWorld, Dragons World, Arrow, Hamish Hamilton, Readers Digest, Dorling Kindersly
Late 1960s and Early 1970s: Contract with German advertising agency (H.B.U. Dusseldorf) as consultant Art Director and Illustrator, working on experimental three dimensional artworks used in market research.
Paintings published as prints by Paul Hamlin, Frost and Reed (England) and Scandecor (Sweden), a series of five girls' heads in the Top Ten best selling list (1980s).
Exhibited with the "Quichua" painters group in Provence (landscapes and nudes). Worked on publicity material for Bernardo Bertolucci, Stephen Spielberg, Walt Disney Productions.
Portrait Commissions include: H.R.H. The Prince of Wales, Aristotle Onassis, Al Capone, President Kennedy, Sir Lew Grade, Barry Norman, Sybilla Edmondstone, various fashion models.
Over the years has had seven books published:
A story of beautiful girls journeying through time and space, based on the Sakti Shiva story in Indian mythology.
Fantastic Paper Gliders 1 and 2: Two books of paper gliders to make and fly designed by the author.
Paper Planes 1 and 2: Two books of classic aeroplanes to be made up into flying scale models.
Flying Dinosaurs: Flying scale models of pterodactyls.
Birds of Provence (Barthelemy 2000) guide book.
Worked on specialised architectural illustrations for various developments in the South of France, one in Saudi Arabia. This, in turn have led to commissions (Aerial views) of private houses and gardens.
Commissioned to produce large undersea paintings showing sunken ships, also several large aircraft paintings of corporate jets flying over specific landscapes.
Worked with Sir Norman Foster on a book entitled "Aeroplane" (following a similar concept as the book produced by Le Corbusier in 1925), tracing the history of man's early attempts to fly, through to the most advanced developments of today.
In 2001, conceived and designed a book based on the Japanese "Shunga" books (erotic art) of the 17th century, 25 drawings and 50 sketches were produced.
In 2002 – 2005, conceived and illustrated a fantasy book and film scenario, based on the 11th century journey of Berengaria (later the wife of Richard the Lion Heart) from Provence to the south of Spain.
Source: Michael Johnson website
