Art: O Rare Ben Johnson

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The conclave of nudes sprawled around the rooms of Manhattan's Kornblee Gallery gives the place the air of a millinery bawdyhouse: most of the ladies in the paintings wear large, horticultural hats and little else. Painter Ben Johnson, 60, brings off the neat trick of evoking an almost Rubens fleshiness while adhering to a strict hard-edge technique, and his voluptuaries thrive surprisingly well in their poster environment.

One well-talcumed nymph lolls whitely against a background of Pepto-Bismol pink, her orange hair providing the final color clash that makes the whole thing undulate provocatively before the eyes. Another, in a great Flanders Field of a poppy-covered hat and a gold choker, stands scornfully akimbo; only the candid bareness of her monolithic bust keeps her from being some long-remembered Miss Gardner scolding the second grade before the class picnic.

Johnson claims to have come upon this sort of figure painting about 13 years ago after dedicating a dozen years to an all-consuming religious activity that he refuses to talk about other than to say it "developed within me an understanding of the good and bad in people." He says that his paintings show how he feels about humanity. "No matter how startling they may be to people, there is always something pretty about them. I paint the way I do because I am not fearful of breaking any art rules. I have always wanted to paint as great a picture as possible, and at the same time have it come as near as possible to pure corn—but have it just miss."

Where did he get that hat? Not a fetish at all, according to Johnson; it belongs to his wife and he likes to paint it, with a change of flowers from time to time. "I get sheer pleasure out of painting that hat," he says. In any case, the device of painting hatted nudes seems to be uniquely Johnson's. Even the supremely nonchalant grisette caught picnicking in the buff with a brace of fully clad gentlemen in Manet's Le Déjeuner sur I'Herbe had the delicacy to remove her picture hat before sitting down to lunch.