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Lee Johnson – art historian
FRIENDS and colleagues have paid tribute to an eminent art historian who was killed in a fire in his Hampstead bedroom.
Professor Lee Johnson, 81, died in the Lyndhurst Road house that he had lived in for more than 25 years, two weeks ago.
A student at the Courtauld Institute in the mid-1950s, he went on to be considered the world’s expert in the French painter Eugene Delacroix, and taught history of art at Toronto University for 30 years, from the 1960s onwards. He also spent some time in the 1970s teaching part-time at Cambridge University.
One of his former students, Professor Paul Joannides, now himself a Cambridge don, remembered how Prof Johnson’s big break came early in his career when he discovered four unknown Delacroix painting’s while he was still a Phd student at the Courtauld. Prof Joannides, also a History of Art don, said: “It was an astonishing coup for a scholar at the beginning of his work – he rediscovered four early decorative paintings in the house they had been painted in – the town house of Talma, the Lawrence Olivier of his time – in Paris. He was very proud about that, it certainly established him as an inventory scholar.”
Prof Joannides, who knew Prof Johnson for 40 years, would frequently speak to him on the phone, as well as enjoying dinners in Paris and at his Hampstead home, and recalled his French wife Michelle as “a wonderful cook”.
Prof Johnson lost his wife roughly four years ago, a year after he suffered a stroke which left him housebound and virtually bedridden.
He had spent his last 18 months visiting a day centre for elderly people in Chalk Farm called the Charlie Ratchford centre.
Prof Joannides described him as “a marvellous teacher who was extremely encouraging, helpful and inspiring,” and recalled: “Whenever he told me off I always deserved it. He was not a flatterer.”
Professor Ronald Pickvance, a retired art historian from Glasgow University, remembered his contemporary as a “the perfect scholar”. Prof Pickvance, who spoke to him five days before his death, said of the circumstances surrounding his death: “It sounds a tragic and awful situation.”
He added: “I am deeply upset by his death – I knew him for 50 years, we were very good friends. Never a Christmas went by without a card, he was a great man, teacher and scholar.
“He was a man of great wit and humour but he was also quiet and modest – in many ways he was the perfect scholar.”
And he recalled a joke about growing old which Prof Johnson had been very taken with: “When you’re on a straight road and see a sign marked ‘Old Age’, take the first right.”
He continued: “He’ll be sadly missed. The way we comprehend Delacroix will never be the same because of the contribution he’s made.”
None of Prof Johnson’s colleagues and friends could explain his interest in Delacroix.
Prof Pickvance said: “He just got hooked – who knows why people become so interested in one person?”
CHARLOTTE CHAMBERS |
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