The Art of the Late Daniel Johnston: Musician, Artist, and Renaissance Man

The Editors

 

Daniel Johnston (January 22, 1961 – September 11, 2019) was a manic-depressive genius singer/songwriter/artist, active in the music scene since the late 1970s, whose artworks are currently on exhibit at Gallery 30 South.

He was a self-taught pop rocker and illustrator whose art and music was greatly focused on his obsession with unrequited love and the pop culture that he first encountered as an adolescent.

Johnston’s songs have been covered by several hundred artists, including David Bowie and Tom Waits. The late Kurt Cobain mused that Daniel Johnston is the best songwriter in America. In 2006, his life was documented in the award-winning film, The Devil and Daniel Johnston, and his painted illustrations were exhibited in the Whitney biennial.

Johnston had a lifetime battle with mental illness, and medication prescribed for this condition damaged his liver requiring multiple hospitalizations. He died from a heart attack in his sleep before the morning of September 11, 2019. He left behind a legacy as perhaps the greatest outsider musician-artist of the 21st century.

 

For more information about Daniel Johnston’s artworks, visit Gallery 30 South: (323) 547-3227,  [email protected].

 

 

 

 

 

Highbrow Magazine

 

Popular: 
not popular
Bottom Slider: 
Out Slider