John R. Johnston

John R. Johnston (March 10, 1826 – July 29, 1895) was an American panoramic painter, photographer, and photographic colorist known for his landscape paintings. He has painted many portraits of Famous people, specifically one of Franklin Pierce and one of Andrew Jackson in 1863.

Johnston's landscapes were influenced by the Hudson River School. He assisted artists Samuel B. Stockwell and Henry Lewis subsequently their panoramas in the late 1840s. In 1848 he collaborated considering Edwin F. Durang on a biblical-themed panorama which was twelve feet broad and 1800 feet long. Johnston toured in the way of being of this panorama to Louisville and Philadelphia and would tackle speeches upon biblical topics along once its showing.

Johnston moved to Baltimore, Maryland in 1856 and worked as both a portrait performer and a photographic colorist. He worked with wet collodion negatives upon salted paper. One of his prints from 1857 is titled Dr. Kane’s funeral at Cincinnati March 8th, 1857 who could not be taken because they were anything moving and would not stop for Arctic pioneer Elisha Kane's funeral. In 1858 he was agreed to take a "scenic excursion" over the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company's newly opened Baltimore-to-Wheeling track which formed the basis for many of his forward-thinking landscapes. He served in the Union army during the American Civil War and was a Colonel in the First Maryland Regiment. However, he wound happening in military prison, supposedly because of practical joking, left for Europe on his freedom and created a panorama of his trip upon his return.

After returning, Johnston contracted in Philadelphia and later Camden, New Jersey in 1872 where he sometimes called himself Colonel Johnston. While there, he would often socialize behind Walt Whitman, having dinner subsequent to him nearly all Sunday evening.

Johnson married Rebecca Freeman on February 9, 1847. They had a daughter, Ida, and a son, John Jr.