Johnston, Henrietta (c. 1670–1728)

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Johnston, Henrietta (c. 1670–1728)

Irish-born artist who was possibly the first woman artist in America . Born Henrietta Deering before 1670, probably in Ireland; died in Charleston, South Carolina, on March 7, 1728 (some sources cite 1729); married Gideon Johnston (a cleric of the Church of England), on April 11, 1705; children: several stepchildren.

If ever art was born of necessity, it is the art of Henrietta Johnston, who produced some 40 pastel portraits of distinguished citizens of Charleston, South Carolina, during the early 18th century and, in doing so, provided income for her struggling family. Little is known of her life until her marriage to Reverend Gideon Johnston in Dublin, Ireland, in April 1705. At the time, Gideon, a cleric of the Church of England and a widower with several children, was heavily in debt. In 1707, after Gideon had procured an appointment as rector to a church in Charleston (then Charles Town), the Johnstons sailed for America, hoping for a brighter future.

The voyage, however, was marked by misfortune. Staying ashore too long during a stopover in the Medieras, Gideon missed the ship, and so Henrietta and the children sailed into Charleston without him. While attempting to reach port, he was marooned for 12 days on an offshore island without food or water. When he was finally rescued and brought ashore, half dead from exposure, he found that another cleric had taken over his church. It took several months of negotiations before he regained control of his congregation.

During her husband's prolonged recovery, Johnston acted as his nurse and secretary while also managing the children and household. Charleston, unlike the Eden the Johnstons had imagined, turned out to be a primitive village with muddy roads, legions of ill-mannered inhabitants, and swarms of swamp mosquitoes, from which Henrietta soon contracted malaria. While caring for her husband and tending to her own chronic illness, Johnston somehow managed to supplement the family's income by drawing portraits of the local citizens. Some of her early pictures are of her doctor and his family, and, according to art historian Margaret S. Middleton , may have been produced as payment for medical care. Johnston's role as bread-winner is also evident in a letter written by Gideon to Bishop Gilbert Burnet in 1709: "Were it not for the assistance my wife gives me by drawing of pictures (which can last but a little time in a place so ill peopled) I shou'd [sic] not have been able to live." Johnston further assisted her husband by returning to England (1711–12) and obtaining a missionary appointment for him. When Gideon made a trip to England himself (1713–15), Johnston, in his absence, survived two hurricanes and the onset of the Indian wars, during which time she took in some of the throngs of frightened refugees that poured into Charleston.

Johnston's portraits were executed on sheets of 9x12 paper, in pastel chalk that she may have brought from Ireland, as she would have been unable to purchase it in America at the time. Her works are described as crude but competent likenesses, "direct and uncompromising," notes art historian Anna Wells Rutledge . Rutledge theorizes that Johnston may have studied with amateur portraitist Simon Digby, bishop of Elphin, her husband's superior in Ireland. Whatever her schooling, Johnston's use of pastels is surprising, as the medium was very new even in Europe, where Italian artist Rosalba Carriera (1675–1757) had only recently established it as a viable art form.

In 1716, Gideon Johnston was drowned in a boating mishap on Charleston Bay. Little is known of what happened to Henrietta Johnston after that, though there is evidence that at one point she traveled to New York to visit friends. Several pastels attributed to her are signed "New York" and dated 1725. Johnston was back in Charleston by 1727, as the register of the Parish of St. Philip's Church, Charleston, records her burial on March 7, 1928.