Sargent Claude Johnson and Louis Braille

After artist Sargent Claude Johnson finished his monumental organ screen for the California School for the Blind in 1934, he created a separate piece—a smaller “lunette,” or half-moon-shaped carving—depicting Louis Braille teaching visually impaired students how to use the raised alphabet that Braille had invented. The wood is carved to show five students in a garden setting seated with Braille at a table, fully engaged in the task at hand. The piece is on view now in The Huntington’s “Sargent Claude Johnson” exhibition, flanked—and somewhat dwarfed—by the sheer scope and scale of a stage proscenium arch on one side and the organ screen on the other. But it is no less significant.

Johnson, a California artist, was working on commission as part of the New Deal’s federal Public Works of Art Project.

The Huntington borrowed the Braille lunette to mount in the Johnson exhibition from the California School for the Blind, where it typically hangs in a modest space in the school’s library as a reminder of Braille’s major achievement for visually impaired people worldwide. Braille, born in Coupvray, France, in 1809 (note that the lunette incorrectly says 1806), lost his sight at age 3 following an accident in his father’s harness-making workshop. After a slow and arduous recovery, he went on to excel academically. By the time he was 15, he created and completed his tactile reading and writing system comprised of raised dots. But even though Braille’s work was widely lauded, the system was not incorporated into school curricula until after his death in 1852. And it wasn’t until 1916 that Braille’s system was finally adopted by schools for visually impaired students in the United States.

The Huntington created a replica of Johnson’s carving—fabricated to look and feel exactly like the original—for visitors to the “Sargent Claude Johnson” exhibition, placing it at waist height with signage encouraging visitors to “Please touch.”

“I was in Fremont at the California School for the Blind gathering ideas for the exhibition,” said Dennis Carr, The Huntington’s Virginia Steele Scott Chief Curator of American Art and one of the curators of the Johnson exhibition. “And in talking with Gina Ouellette, the superintendent, I realized that a replica of the Braille lunette would be a marvelous addition. I could see where, over the years, students there had touched the original—as a carving, it’s a completely tactile experience—so I wanted visitors to the exhibition to have that experience, too.” True enough, visitors sometimes have a hard time not touching objects, as museum security officers will attest. This experience, however, gives visitors that very opportunity. “It’s meant to give you a more visceral encounter with Johnson’s work,” Carr added.

When the exhibition ends, Carr plans to send the replica to the school for students and teachers to enjoy and use. “I’ve learned so much about Sargent Claude Johnson from the experience of lending to the exhibition,” Ouellette said. “Having the replica will be a wonderful opportunity to work with teachers to build Johnson into the curriculum and share the work—and this important history of our school—with the students here.” Though the original will likely return to its place on the library wall, the replica will be mounted low, as it is in the exhibition, for all to touch and examine, accompanied by didactic information.

When Ouellette came to The Huntington for the opening of the exhibition, she said, “Seeing the organ screen and associated pieces reunited in one room was an extremely moving experience. That they were all made for the school—there is so much to be proud of in this.” While both students and teachers may be quite familiar with Braille, Johnson is less well known. Learning more about him and the work, Ouellette said, will enrich a sense of the history of the place.

A curious connection between Braille and Johnson exists, Carr said. Braille was an organist and a composer, and he created tactile notation in raised dots for music. “I find it remarkable that Johnson, of all things, created a beautiful, large organ screen for the school and that Braille himself was an organist. Organ music was an important part of musical education at the school during the 1930s, and a broad education in music continues to be important there today.”

The gallery also offers another touch opportunity—examples of the types of materials that Johnson experimented with: redwood, cast stone, terra-cotta, black clay (from Oaxaca, Mexico), copper, and enamel. He mastered them all. “I continue to be struck by the sheer range of materials he used and the excellent work he produced—from sculpture to lithography, drawing, painting, enamel work, the list goes on,” Carr said. “He saw enamel on steel at the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition, and, within 10 years, he was working in an enamel factory in Oakland, producing his own works. He was highly experimental.”

What united Johnson’s work across such a range of media was a commitment to using old techniques to make modernist objects. He was influenced by writer-philosopher Alain Locke, “dean” of the Harlem Renaissance, who encouraged Black artists to look to Africa for inspiration. As a result, Johnson’s work frequently employs Egyptian motifs as well as methodology. For instance, with some of his sculptures, he experimented with something akin to a multistep “mummification” process: carving the wood, then wrapping it in linen, and then plastering and painting it. Two of these sculptures, Forever Free (1933) and Negro Woman (ca. 1935), are among the first objects one encounters upon entering the gallery, and they are magnificent. You may be tempted to reach toward them, but you will have to resist. Thankfully, those two “Please touch” interactive displays in the gallery are just a few steps away.

The “Sargent Claude Johnson” exhibition, on view through May 20, is made possible through support from the Terra Foundation for American Art and is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. Generous funding for this exhibition is also provided by an anonymous foundation, the Henry Luce Foundation, the Philip and Muriel Berman Foundation, the Steve Martin Fund for American Art, and The Ahmanson Foundation Exhibition and Education Endowment.

Susan Turner-Lowe is a writer, editor, and the former vice president for communications and marketing at The Huntington.