Richard Johnson

A photographic collection that celebrates the tranquility of winter and the ingenuity of vernacular architecture.

From a clear, straight-on vantage point and with a pictorial formality echoing the work of documentary photography pioneers Bernd and Hilla Becher, Richard Johnson (1957–2021) spent more than a decade recording and categorizing visual typologies of small, hand-built structures across Canada.

His largest and most celebrated collection of photographs documents ice huts used for fishing across the frozen lakes, bays, and rivers. These huts must be weather-resistant and transportable, giving basic shelter around the opening to the water below. Johnson’s photographs reveal the functional and aesthetic similarities and differences of what he called “renegade architecture”—a form verging on a vernacular folk art tradition.

Later in his life, Johnson began documenting Newfoundland’s ubiquitous, earthen-built root cellars. To Johnson, the cellars were place-specific oddities; efficiently constructed and curiously anthropomorphic. They also fit conceptually into his lifelong fascination with small structures built out of necessity and usually by hand.

More than 200 photographs from these series are complemented by texts from acclaimed photographer and filmmaker Edward Burtynsky and curator Tom Smart that contextualize Johnson’s photographs and place his work among the contemporary disciples of the Bechers' Düsseldorf School. A personal text by Johnson’s long-time partner, Lucie Bergeron-Johnson, provides an intimate portrait of the artist, and chronicles his journey to the discovery of his subject matter and the development of his signature style.