Reverend Johnnie Swearingen—“I hear the Lord.  He tells me to do His bidding and that’s what I do.”

BIOGRAPHICAL DATA

Born August 27, 1908, Campground Church near Chappell Hill (near Brenham), Texas.  Attended school through eighth grade, Petersville (near Brenham), Texas.  Married Lora Ann Williams, c. 1926; divorced; she died c. 1948.  Married Murray Lee Williams (not related to Lora Ann), 1949.  Two stepsons, two stepdaughters.  Now resides Brenham, Texas.

GENERAL BACKGROUND

The Reverend Johnnie Swearingen is a black preacher who paints religious scenes and impressions of life in rural Texas. 

              Swearingen claims that he was only seven years old when he first heard the word of the Lord.  “But,” he says, “I went through periods when I fell away [from about 1947 through 1962].  I had worldly deals—girlfriends.”

               Swearingen left his home in Texas when he was a young man and worked his way West to California, hitching rides on freight trains, “chopping” cotton (hoeing between the cotton rows), and picking grapes.  When he reached San Pedro, he went to work as a longshoreman.

              In 1948 Swearingen returned to Texas and took up farming; that was also the period when he had a lapse from the Lord’s call.  But “In 1962 God called to me again,” he states; “I will never give up preaching and painting.”

ARTISTIC BACKGROUND

Johnnie Swearingen claims he started painting at an early age but turned to it more seriously when he returned to Texas about 1948.  By 1962, when he started preaching again, he was painting as much as possible.  The artist was introduced to the public in an exhibition entitled “The Eyes of Texas:  An Exhibition of Living Texas Folk Artists,” held at the University of Hou8ston in Houston, Texas, in 1980.

SUBJECTS AND SOURCES

              Swearingen paints biblical scenes, fables, and memories of his life in Texas and the people he knows.  His paintings show a vivid and quirky imagination:  cars bend as they turn corners, the devil appears at the open door of a church, death rides in a horserace.  The artist lets his work preach in quiet tones about the everyday realities of the rural black culture.

MATERIALS AND TECHNIQUES

Swearingen made some early drawings with shoe polish on paper, but his medium has mostly been oil paints on Masonite  He generally signs his paintings “J.S.S.,” and he sometimes repeats his topics. 

              The paintings are usually around 24 by 26 inches in size, although he has done a large painting of Noah’s Ark that is 4 by 8 feet.  When questioned, Swearingen would not say how many works he had completed, only that he had eight for sale at the moment. 

ARTISTIC RECOGNITION

The Reverend John Swearingen is well known in parts of the Southwest but less known elsewhere in the country.  He has been widely exhibited in Texas, and his work is included in The Menil Collection in Houston.

This entry was taken directly from the “Museum of American Folk Art Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century American FOLK ART and ARTISTS,” by Chuck and Jan Rosenak.  (Abbeville Press, NYC, 1990).

**Director’s Note:  Late in life, Swearingen developed glaucoma. His paintings seem to incorporate more simplified forms, flatter perspective and pictorial design, and brighter colors as difficulty with his vision increased.