Charmian Johnson (Canadian, 1939-2020) was an artist and educator who lived and worked in Vancouver. She studied ceramics under Glenn Lewis, and developed a distinct style within the Leachian tradition having spent a number of years at Bernard Leach’s pottery studio in St. Ives where she catalogued and archived the Leach collection. Beginning in the 1970s, Johnson has been highly regarded across local and international ceramic communities. Throughout her lifetime, she developed a meticulous drawing practice that she kept largely to herself. Rendering botanical elements she encountered in her own garden as well as on her travels to Morocco, Turkey, Hawaii and France, Johnson developed her drawings over time, sometimes for months or even years. Johnson studied drawing, graphics and pottery at the University of British Columbia. She has had solo exhibitions at the Vancouver Art Gallery and UBC Fine Arts Gallery (now the Belkin Gallery). Johnson has been featured in group exhibitions across Canada, including the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; the UBC Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver; the Burnaby Art Gallery; the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria; the Glenbow Museum, Calgary; the Museum of Natural Sciences, Ottawa; Catriona Jeffries Gallery, Vancouver; and in the 2004 exhibition Thrown: Influences and Intentions of West Coast Ceramics at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, which she co-curated.