No grand monument marks the spot in Maplewood Cemetery where Malvin Gray Johnson’s family laid him to rest 75 years ago.
There’s no marker at all.
There’s no marker at all.
Yet somewhere beneath this grassy spot lies the grave of the man whom one researcher calls “the most significant artist to come out of Greensboro.”
After he left his native Greensboro for New York in 1912 at age 16, Johnson became a rising star in the 1920s and 1930s during the explosion of black culture known as the Harlem Renaissance.
Most of his works eventually made their way to historically black universities, some into private collections and a self-portrait into the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Most of his works eventually made their way to historically black universities, some into private collections and a self-portrait into the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
But because he died so young — at 38 — and so long ago, the artist fell into obscurity in Greensboro and in art history.
“I didn’t know that he grew up in Greensboro,” says state Rep. Alma Adams, who shows images of Johnson’s work in her African American art class at Bennett College.