Original Artwork

1964, acrylic on board

For the 1964 Fontana edition of Alistair MacLean’s 1959 novel Night without End, Fratini captures the conflict of two men trapped on the ice after a crash-landing. It appears to depict a fight to the death, the eventual victim painted in aggressive red and bearing a gun.

The original painting art board is approximately 45 cm wide x 33 cm tall. 

This artwork is sold with a copy of an original Night Without End paperback featuring the Fratini artwork. 

If you have any questions regarding this edition please email info@levergallery.com

1964, acrylic on board

Fontana Books reprinted Alistair MacLean’s 1962 novel The Golden Rendezvous in 1964.  The macho hero raises a gun, he is dressed in white on a white background, so the red-clad woman he is protecting draws the eye. 

The original painting art board is approximately 45 cm wide x 34 cm tall. The artwork is float mounted on to conservation grade mountboard and presented in a white wooden box frame glazed with anti-reflective glass.

1964 – 65, acrylic on board, 44cm x 45cm

Cover illustration for Highland Masquerade by Mary Elgin for Corgi Books. A romantic novel set the Scottish Highlands. Mary Elgin (1917-1965) wrote only three books that are known but is considered the closest thing to Mary Stewart. Her books are contemporary gothics with humour and charm.

c. 1964-5, acrylic painting on canvas.

An early commission for short-lived London agency Dyad Marketing. Johnson interpreted the brief ‘Girl with a Gun’ using photographs in a sequence of poses arranged like a moving image. Influenced by American illustrators who were showing their work in art galleries, Johnson created this at a scale suitable for a gallery setting.

The original painting is approximately 100 cm tall X 200 cm wide. The artwork is on stretched canvas, framed in a white wooden box frame.