“Art Is as Broad as Space”

Raymond Jonson was born on July 18, 1891, in Chariton, Iowa, on the farm of his maternal grandparents. He was the eldest of six children of Gustav Johnson and Josephine Abrahamson Johnson, both Swedish immigrants. Jonson was staunchly devoted to creating modernist, abstract painting that visualized and communicated the spiritual. This was the fundamental, unwavering purpose of his art for most of his career of nearly seventy years. In 1910 Jonson moved to Chicago to pursue more rigorous study for a career as a commercial artist at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. In his first few years in Chicago, he studied there and at the Art Institute of Chicago. Bror Nordfeldt was the Chicago-based modernist painter who most influenced Jonson's development during his years in Chicago. He worked in a Post-Impressionist style and was very familiar with the most developments in European art since he had traveled extensively and internationally.