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MOUNT VERNON — The question was direct: Where did the First Federal Bank Vernon Johnson paintings go?
The answer is short: They’re in the Woodward Opera House located at 107 S. Main St.
That was an interesting query though, because Vernon Johnson’s paintings have changed several hands throughout their time in Knox County.
Their former home was the First Federal Bank located at 136 S. Main St. — which is now up for sale by realtor Phipps Realty Advisors.
Seven paintings were displayed at the bank, with four behind the tellers, one in an office and two in the lobby, Knox County Historical Society’s Executive Director Jim Gibson said.
The four paintings behind the tellers were Johnsons’ four seasons, which illustrated four different houses detailing fall, winter, spring and summer, respectively.
“I think he was friends with one of the top people at First Federal,” Gibson said. “They bought four of his paintings and put them there in the bank,” which were taken to the opera house roughly seven to eight years ago.
The paintings can’t be widely viewed, only when there is an event occurring on the third floor of the opera house.
When Huntington bank took over, the First Federal Bank manager asked if Johnson’s paintings could be donated to the community foundation because they had historical value, former executive director of the Knox County Foundation Sam Barone said.
“Huntington was kind enough to give them to us. So we got seven paintings out of there.”
Johnson was a graphic artist for the Shellmar Corp., a Mount Vernon packaging company located off Sandusky Street along the river, from the 1940s through the 1970s.
Before becoming a graphic artist for Shellmar, Johnson honed his craft at a Cleveland art school and proved to be gifted, Gibson said.
During this time before he retired in Richmond, Virginia, Johnson traveled throughout the county scoping houses he found beauty in.
“He’d go up and knock on the door and say ‘Is it OK if I do a painting of your house?’ and if they said yes he’d sit on a chair across the street, sketch and take pictures,” Gibson said. “A great number of his paintings were of local homes, which were, really quite nice, but then also of historic buildings.”
