Ray Johnson

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Raymond Edward "Ray" Johnson (16 October 1927 – 13 January 1995) was an American artist. Known primarily as a collagist and correspondence artist, he was a seminal figure in the history of Neo-Dada and early Pop art and was described as "New York's most famous unknown artist". Johnson also staged and participated in early performance art events as the founder of a far-ranging mail art network – the New York Correspondence School – which picked up momentum in the 1960s and is still active today. He is occasionally associated with members of the Fluxus movement but was never a member. He lived in New York City from 1949 to 1968, when he moved to a small town in Long Island and remained there until his suicide.

Publications
  • Ray Johnson: Correspondences, ed. Donna De Salvo, Columbus, OH: Wexner Center for the Arts, 1999, 224 pp.
  • Ray Johnson's Art World, ed. Elizabeth Zuba, New York: Feigen & Co., 2014, 32 pp.
  • Not Nothing: Selected Writings by Ray Johnson, 1954-1994, ed. Elizabeth Zuba, Los Angeles: Siglio Press, 2014, 380 pp. Publisher.
  • Kate Dempsey Martineau, Ray Johnson: Selective Inheritance, University of California Press, 2018, 304 pp. Publisher.
  • That Was the Answer: Interviews with Ray Johnson, ed. Julie J. Thomson, Soberscove Press, 2018, 198 pp. Publisher.
  • Frog Pond Splash: Collages by Ray Johnson with Texts by William S. Wilson, ed. Elizabeth Zuba, Catskill, NY: Siglio Press, 2020. [1]
  • Ray Johnson c/o, eds. Caitlin Haskell and Jordan Carter, Yale University Press, with Art Institute of Chicago, 2021, 376 pp. Publisher.
  • Please Send to Real Life: Ray Johnson Photographs, ed. Joel Smith, Mack Books, with Morgan Library & Museum, 2022, 256 pp.
  • Miriam Kienle, Queer Networks: Ray Johnson's Correspondence Art, University of Minnesota Press, 2023, 296 pp. Publisher.
  • Ellen Levy, A Book about Ray, MIT Press, 2024, 394 pp. Publisher.
Links
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