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Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson

Pronouns: he/him
Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in Art History

CONTACT

Art and Music Histories
308 C Bowne Hall
Email: sjohns32@syr.edu
Office: 315.443.4433

Degrees

Ph.D., Harvard University, 2015
A.M., Harvard University, 2011
B.A., University of Minnesota, 2006

Social/Academic Links

Courses Taught

Undergraduate

  • Arts & Ideas II
  • Photography and the Fine Arts
  • Avant-garde Art, 1905-45
  • Art After the Second World War

Graduate

  • The Literature of Art Criticism
  • Cubism and Abstraction
  • East/West: Russian Modernism and 20th Century Art
  • New Media/Old Media
  • Institutions and the Critique of Institutions in 20th Century Art
Research Interests

Samuel Johnson is a specialist in the art and architecture of the Russian and Soviet avant-gardes. His research deals with art and politics in Russia between the World Wars, with a particular focus on the transformation of the avant-garde under Stalin. He teaches courses on various topics in twentieth century art.

Publications

“Counterfactual Modeling in Historical Reconstruction,” co-authored with Mitesh Dixit, Lawry Boyer, and Stephen Melville, Technology | Architecture + Design (TAD) vol. 6 no. 1 (2022): 46-58

“Suprematism and/or Supremacy of Architecture” in Celebrating Suprematism: New Approaches to the Art of Kazimir Malevich, ed. Christina Lodder (Brill, 2018), 144-60

“Ornement/masse: la troisième dimension du suprématisme,” in Chagall, Lissitzky, Malévitch: L’avant-garde russe à Vitebsk, 1918-1922 (Paris: Centre Pompidou, 2018), 196-201

“El Lissitzky’s Other Wolkenbügel: Reconstructing an Abandoned Architectural Project,” The Art Bulletin vol. 99 no. 3 (Sept. 2017), 147-69

Books
Honors and Awards

Leonard A. Lauder Postdoctoral Fellowship, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2015-17