Rashid Johnson: Large Anxious Red

Rashid Johnson (b.1977) is one of America’s most successful contemporary artists. 

 

At age 19, while studying photography at Columbia College in Chicago, where he was born and raised, Johnson took some of his works to a nearby gallery, hoping to get them shown. The photographs were portraits of homeless Black men who lived near his Chicago studio. They were done in vintage-style Van Dyke Brown printing process.The gallery showed his work and two were bought by the Art Institute of Chicago. He eventually attended the Art Institute and received his MFA in 2025.

 

 

Johnson’s paintings, sculptures and photographs have been shown at, and are part of the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Gallery of Art and other major venues around the world. He has supported, and advocated for, the success of contemporary artists who are hoping for a place in the art world.

 

In 2023, one of his paintings sold for $3 million at Christie’s, making his work among the most expensive by a living Black artist. Last year, Johnson was given a retrospective at the Guggenheim. New York. Last month, Johnson photographed Jay-Z  for GQ Magazine. (Jay-Z has been collecting Johnson’s works for the last decade).

 

Johnson’s 5,800sq-ft home in Gramercy Park, which he bought in 2020 from the late Cars frontman Ric Ocasek for $9.4 million, is filled with works by both modern and contemporary artists. 

 

Rashid Johnson says that he was “born anxious” and expresses those feelings in much of his work, like Large Anxious Red, now available at VFA. 

 

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 Please contact us if you would like more information about the work of Rashid Johnson available at VFA.

 

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May 26, 2026