David Johnson: In the Zone (1945 - 1965)
Curator. San Francisco Arts Commission Galleries: City Hall. May 2022 - January 2023
David Johnson: In the Zone (1945-1965) features 65 photographic works by Bay Area legend, David Johnson. Johnson was born in 1926 in the segregated South near Jacksonville, FL. After serving in the Navy during World War II, he moved to San Francisco to study at the California School of Fine Arts (later renamed the San Francisco Art Institute) in the newly formed Photography Department led by renowned photographer Ansel Adams. Johnson was the first Black artist to graduate during what is now known as the photography program's "Golden Decade" from 1945 to 1955.
Johnson is recognized as one of the most important photographers to document the joys and struggles of formative decades in San Francisco's storied history. Johnson focused his camera on day-to-day life, with special emphasis on the Black community in his Fillmore District neighborhood from 1945 into the 1960s, before redevelopment in the 1970s changed the demographic of the community forever. He photographed passersby as well as friends, gathering spots like churches and barbershops, children playing and teens hanging out, dance halls and jazz clubs, and the fight for civil rights. His historic work is particularly resonant today as our city and our country reckons with the legacies of systemic oppression and the contemporary realities of racial injustice and inequity for Black Americans.
The photographs in this exhibition are drawn from the David Johnson Photograph Archive, © University of California Regents, at The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley
About David Johnson
David Johnson (1926–2024) was a pioneering photographer whose lens captured the changing face of San Francisco and the vitality of African American life in the mid-20th century. Born in Jacksonville, Florida, Johnson came of age during segregation and discovered photography at a young age. After serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II, he moved west under the G.I. Bill and became the first African American student to study with Ansel Adams at the California School of Fine Arts. There, he trained under Adams and Minor White, developing both the technical mastery and the documentary sensitivity that would define his practice. Settling in the Fillmore District, he chronicled a neighborhood alive with music, protest, faith, and daily life—creating images that are now recognized as some of the most enduring visual records of San Francisco’s Black community during a period of immense social change.
Though Johnson later stepped back from professional photography, the body of work he created between the 1940s and 1960s grew in significance over the decades. His archive, comprising thousands of negatives and prints, preserves the atmosphere of the Fillmore, once celebrated as the “Harlem of the West,” while also bearing witness to the broader currents of civil rights and cultural life in America. In his later years, Johnson was honored with major exhibitions and the institutional preservation of his work, ensuring that his images remain part of the public record. His photographs continue to resonate not only as documents of history but also as expressions of community resilience, artistry, and dignity.