Sargent Johnson, born in 1888 in Boston, Massachusetts, is often credited with helping to bring the spirit of the Harlem Renaissance to the West Coast. He came from a diverse background, with a Father with Swedish ancestry and a mother who was Cherokee and African American. While his siblings chose to identify differently, Johnson embraced his identity as a Black man. Throughout his career, he focused on creating empowering images of people of color, working from the era of the Great Depression through to the Civil Rights Movement.
In 1915, Johnson moved to San Francisco to study painting, drawing, and sculpture. From early on, he was dedicated to using modern artistic styles to portray African Americans in a positive light. He once stated that his goal was to highlight the natural beauty and cultural strength of Black Americans, not to prove it to white audiences, but to reflect it back to the Black community itself. In 1926, the artist began showing his work with the Harmon Foundation of New York, a foundation that supported African-American art. During the 1930s, Johnson worked on many public and federal art projects for the New Deal, such as large-scale architectural artwork for the California School for the Blind in Berkeley. Later in his career, Johnson began incorporating aspects of Mexican culture and its people into his work. During this period, he also continued to represent African American subjects, as well as animals and Native American themes. Johnson passed away in 1967 in San Francisco.