Baroque painter, considered the most important native English portraitist of the early 17th century.

The son of Dutch parents living in London, he was patronized by James I and Charles I but seems to have lost his popularity with the court when Van Dyck came to England in 1632. His English career dates to 1643, after which he went to Holland, painting in Middelburg, Amsterdam, The Hague, and finally Utrecht.

Johnson seldom painted anything except bust portraits, usually oval in format. These pictures are distinguished for their sensitive rendering of the sitter's likeness and their delicate and deft technique; e.g., “Sir Robert Dormer” (1642; T. Cottrell-Dormer Collection, Rousham House, Oxfordshire). He generally painted upon wood panels on a small scale, sometimes producing replicas of his larger works.