Charles Johnson always “had a sense of play.” His daughter, Shelley Carter, can remember Johnson taking her and her brother, Charles Alfred Johnson III, to a local park lake to launch a model boat he had whittled out of wood.
Almost every mode of transportation fascinated Johnson, and as a professional painter he did many “portraits” of vintage cars.
Johnson, an amateur historian who wrote two books, died Dec. 25 after falling from a ladder in his south Denver garage. He was 83.
A memorial service is planned at 2 p.m. Feb. 11 at the Denver Country Club.
Each of Johnson’s paintings of cars had a solid white background with an unusually brightly colored car. He also reproduced in paintings many photos of early Denver – its people, cars, businesses and streets.
Those and other paintings – of landscapes, Colorado mines and miners, and railroad cars – he sold or gave to friends. His work is found in several collections, said Carter, of Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
Johnson left a journal he started in grade school, which contained drawings of boats and trains. He wrote a history of one of the city’s mayors, “Denver’s Mayor (Robert) Speer,” and another book, “Opera in the Rockies,” on one of his favorite subjects, the Central City Opera. He also wrote a small book on early stagecoach travel.
He couldn’t read music, but he “adored” the opera, as well as Broadway musicals and Dixieland jazz, Carter said.
Johnson loved cars, even if they weren’t fancy, and he kept them in good order. He and his wife, Katharine Johnson, once took a trip to Mexico with two other couples. One of the two couples had a pink Triumph and the other a fancy Jaguar, and both cars broke down on the way. The Johnsons drove a sturdy brown Studebaker station wagon, and it never broke down.
Charles Alfred Johnson Jr. was born in Denver on March 17, 1922, and graduated from Yale University with a degree in psychology. He served in the Army from 1944 until 1946.
In 1945, he married Katharine Sweet of Denver. At one time, they lived in Charlford Castle near Castle Rock, which was built by his father, Charles A. Johnson.
Johnson was active in the Park People, an organization that supports Denver parks.
In addition to his daughter, he is survived by four grandchildren and his brother, Gifford Phillips of Rancho Mirage, Calif.
He was preceded in death by his wife and his son, Charles.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at 303-820-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com.
