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  • Mathematical Paintings of Crockett Johnson
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Mathematical Paintings of Crockett Johnson

Resources

American History Museum

Selected Works of David Crockett Johnson

Barnaby, New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company, 1943.

Barnaby and Mr. O’Malley, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1944.

Harold and the Purple Crayon, New York: Harper 7 Row, 1955.

“A Geometrical Look at vp,” Mathematical Gazette, 54 (Feb 1970): 59-60.

“On the Mathematics of Geometry in My Abstract Paintings,” Leonardo, 5 (1972): 97-101.

“A construction for a regular heptagon,” Mathematical Gazette, 17 (March 1975): 17-21.

Papers of Crockett Johnson, Mathematics Collections, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.

Correspondence in the Harley Flanders Papers, Mathematics Collections, National Museum of American History.

Correspondence in the Ad Reinhardt Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Selected Works about Crockett Johnson

Stephanie Cawthorne and Judy Green, “Cubes, Conic Sections, and Crockett Johnson,” Convergence, vol. 11, 2014. https://old.maa.org/press/periodicals/convergence/cubes-conic-sections-and-crockett-johnson-introduction

Stephanie Crawthorne and Judy Green, “Harold and the Purple Heptagon,” Math Horizons (September 2009): 5-9.

Philip Nel, “Crockett Johnson and the Purple Crayon: A Life in Art,” Comic Art, 5 (2004): 2-18.

Philip Nel. Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss: A Biography, Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, in preparation.

James B. Stroud, “Crockett Johnson's Geometric Paintings,” Journal of Mathematics and the Arts, 2 #2 (June 2008): 77-99.

For a more detailed bibliography and further information, see the Crockett Johnson Web site created and maintained by Philip Nel.

Credits

This introduction and the accounts of Crockett Johnson paintings given below have benefited from insights of Uta C. Merzbach, Judy Green, J. B. Stroud, Philip Nel, Mark Kidwell, Emmy Scandling, and Joan Krammer.


Painting - Mystic Hexagon (Pascal)

Painting - Proof of the Pythagorean Theorem (Euclid)

Painting - Reciprocation

Painting - Perspective (Alberti)

Painting - Squares of a 3-4-5 Triangle in Scalene Perspective (Dürer)

Painting - Conic Curve (Apollonius)

Painting - Curve Tangents (Fermat)

Painting - Pendulum Momentum (Galileo)

Painting -Centers of Similitude (La Hire)

Painting - Measurement of the Earth (Eratosthenes)

Painting - Homothetic Triangles (Hippocrates of Chios)

Painting - Pencil of Ratios (Monge)

Painting - Square Root of Two (Descartes)

Painting - Fluxions (Newton)

Painting - Cross-Ratio in a Conic (Poncelet)

Painting - Law of Orbiting Velocity (Kepler)

Painting - Geometry of a Triple Bubble (Plateau)

Painting - Harmonic Series from a Quadrilateral (Pappus)

Painting - Bouquet of Triangle Theorems (Euclid)

Painting - Point Collineation in the Triangle (Euler)

Painting - Every Positive Integer (Gauss)

Painting - Transversals (Ceva)

Painting - One Surface and One Edge (Möbius)

Painting - Simple Equation (Descartes)

Painting - Logarithms

Painting - Polar Line of a Point and a Circle (Apollonius)

Painting - Polyhedron Formula (Euler)

Painting - Multiplication through Imaginary Numbers (Gauss)

Painting - Locus of Point on Chord (Plato)

Painting - Velocity on Inclined Planes (Galileo)

Painting - Parabolic Triangles (Archimedes)

Painting - Square Roots to Sixteen (Theodorus of Cyrene)

Painting - Golden Rectangle (Pythagoras)

Painting - Rectangles of Equal Area (Pythagoras)

Painting - Squared Circle


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