Margot Samel is pleased to present Leroy Johnson, an exhibition of sculptures from the artist’s estate. Johnson exhibited extensively in Philadelphia, the city where he lived and worked for over eight decades. This is the first solo exhibition of Johnson’s work in New York City.
With a documentarian’s eye but a poet’s gaze, Leroy Johnson (1937-2022) surveyed the pleasures, hardships, and contradictions within the Philadelphia neighborhoods where he spent his life. Through his occupations as a social worker, rehab counselor, teacher of disabled youth, and school administrator, Johnson pierced the fabric of collective human experience more deeply than most.
This exhibition contains a selection of Johnson’s house sculptures, tender yet maximalist assemblages that meld his practices of painting, ceramic, collage, and photography. They are a love letter to the urban landscape. As an African American artist who witnessed the civil rights movement and the impact of racist policies on communities he loved, Johnson took particular pleasure in depicting the richness of Black life. He represented the care within communities while refusing to turn his gaze from intense poverty, racism, and gentrification.