LEROY JOHNSON

First published: December 2025

The late Leroy Johnson transformed discarded materials into complex sculptural narratives that tell the stories of Black life in Philadelphia.

Leroy Johnson was fascinated by the way the humanity of a city is revealed in the texture of its urban environment, in both its daily cacophony of noise, trash and deterioration, and the vibrant life of its communities. He spent decades walking the streets of his hometown of Philadelphia, collecting whatever caught his eye, whether something as small as a gum wrapper or as disposable as a scrap of cardboard. These fragments were transformed by Johnson into complex works through his particular eye for found-object alchemy. He layered photographs, materials and graffiti-like scrawls to reflect on issues of racial injustice, inequality, poverty and systemic neglect in the inner city. Text referencing the police shooting of Trayvon Martin, images of Malcolm X and media headlines on war and violence overlap; cut-outs of figures standing in front of battered walls and windows empty of glass remember that even a blighted neighbourhood is a home.

Who Is Eligible?, between 2010 and 2015, 24 x 10 x 15 in. / 61 x 25.5 x 38 cm

“African-American culture has been shaped by a traumatic history,” he wrote in a 2019 artist’s statement. “It contains the elements and memories of separation, fracture, loss and oppression: histories shared by all mankind. ...My art bears witness.” Johnson died in 2022 at the age of 85, having spent his entire life in Philadelphia. The city and its urban landscape, particularly its ephemeral structures like newsstands and the makeshift shelters built by the unhoused from whatever was available, inspired mixed media work with an improvisational spirit. He wrote: “From my perspective, the ‘unbeautiful’ can be as powerful / attractive as the professed beautiful. As an artist, I am trying to give meaning to what is beautiful and extend its parameters. ...The inner-city landscape I depict is both map and metaphor for the actual landscape and the contents of the collective unconscious.”

above: Crosswalk, between 2000 and 2005, 7.5 x 9 x 10.5 in. / 19 x 23 x 26.5 cm

Calling himself an “urban expressionist”, he made paintings, collages, photographs, and works on found paper such as old movie posters, but especially evocative were his house-like sculptures. These sometimes evolved over years, as he combined his skill in ceramic art with assemblages of objects and imagery from magazines, newspapers and discarded packaging. Roofs, balustrades,stoops, fire escapes and storefronts emerged from the patchwork of materials. References to Black culture and history are throughout the architecture, from markings of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s signature crown to images of sports and civil rights icons.