Maker/Artist
Johnson, Ray
American painter, draftsman, and performance artist, 1927-1995
Studied at the Art Students League in New York 1944-1945, and at Black Mountain College, North Carolina from 1945-1948 under Josef Albers. At Black Mountain he met and associated with John Cage, Merce Cunningham, and Richard Lippold. His work involved collage, found objects, and elements of performance, including mail or correspondence art. He circulated art through the postal service under the names "New York Correspondance School" and "Buddha University." He committed suicide under mysterious circumstances that he may have considered a final work of art.