Wikipedia entry
Introduction
Philip Cortelyou Johnson (July 8, 1906 – January 25, 2005) was an American architect best known for his works of modern and postmodern architecture. Among his best-known designs are his modernist Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut; the postmodern 550 Madison Avenue in New York, designed for AT&T; 190 South La Salle Street in Chicago; the Sculpture Garden of the Museum of Modern Art; and the Pre-Columbian Pavilion at Dumbarton Oaks. In his obituary in 2005, The New York Times wrote that his works "were widely considered among the architectural masterpieces of the 20th century."In 1930, Johnson became the first director of the architecture department of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. There he arranged for visits by Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier and negotiated the first American commission for Mies van der Rohe, when he fled Nazi Germany. In 1932, he organized the first exhibition on modern architecture at the Museum of Modern Art. In 1934, Johnson resigned his position at the museum, and, as the New York Times reported in his obituary, "took a bizarre and, he later conceded, deeply mistaken detour into right-wing politics, suspending his career to work on behalf of Gov. Huey P. Long of Louisiana and later the radio priest Father Charles Coughlin, and expressing more than passing admiration for Hitler." In 1941, as the war approached, Johnson abruptly quit Coughlin's newspaper and journalism. He was investigated by the FBI, and was eventually cleared for military service. Years later he would refer to these activities as "the stupidest thing I ever did [which] I never can atone for". 1978, he was awarded an American Institute of Architects Gold Medal and in 1979 the first Pritzker Architecture Prize. Today his skyscrapers are prominent features in the skylines of New York, Houston, Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Madrid, and other cities.
Wikidata
Q183528
View or edit the full Wikipedia entry
Information from Wikipedia, made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License
Getty record
Introduction
Johnson studied at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts from 1923-1930 and attended Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1940-1943. He was in professional partnership with Richard Foster (New York, 1964-1967) and John Burgee (New York 1967-1991). Johnson was the director at the Department of Architecture, Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1930-1936 and 1946-1954, and he was a trustee at the Museum of Modern Art starting in 1958. American architect and author.
Nationality
American
Gender
Male
Roles
Artist, Author, Architect, Architectural Historian, Art Critic, Critic, Client, Collector
Names
Philip Johnson, Philip Cortelyou Johnson
Ulan
500014481
View the full Getty record
Information from Getty’s Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License

Works

14 works online

Exhibitions

View all 16 exhibitions

Publication

  • Studies in Modern Art 6: Philip Johnson and The Museum of Modern Art Series edited by John Elderfield. Essays by Mirka Benes, Peter Reed and Terence Riley, 1998 Paperback, 160 pages
Licensing

If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA’s collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).

MoMA licenses archival audio and select out of copyright film clips from our film collection. At this time, MoMA produced video cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. All requests to license archival audio or out of copyright film clips should be addressed to Scala Archives at [email protected]. Motion picture film stills cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For access to motion picture film stills for research purposes, please contact the Film Study Center at [email protected]. For more information about film loans and our Circulating Film and Video Library, please visit https://www.moma.org/research/circulating-film.

If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication, please email [email protected]. If you would like to publish text from MoMA’s archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to [email protected].

Feedback

This record is a work in progress. If you have additional information or spotted an error, please send feedback to [email protected].