From Vail Daily, in 2017:

CECILE RYDEN JOHNSON—AMERICA’S FOREMOST SKI ARTIST


The Colorado Snowsports Museum houses several works by renowned artist Cecile Ryden Johnson.  She was an internationally known, 20th century American watercolorist, influenced by the “plein air” tradition of artists who left their studios and traveled to paint in natural settings. Johnson gained recognition for capturing the unique beauty and feeling of natural color, light and shade of landscapes.

The image featured is a digitized version of Johnson’s watercolor painting of Aspen in the 1970s. Donated by the artist, this work beautifully depicts Ajax Mountain from Aspen Village. This painting, and most of Johnson’s work, was directly inspired by her travels and the natural settings she visited, perfectly capturing place and time.

Johnson loved the outdoors and she loved sports. This love and her consummate skill at capturing action live at sporting events led to a variety of commissions to paint on camera from ABC Wide World of Sports, Canadian Broadcasting, the BBC, CNN and other television networks. ABC and CBC broadcast her painting in action at five Winter Olympic Games, including the men’s and women’s Gold Medal rounds in figure skating as well as the famous 1980 “Miracle on Ice” Olympic hockey game between the U.S. and Russia in Lake Placid.

Known as “America’s foremost ski artist,” the U.S. Olympic Committee’s Fine Arts Committee selected Johnson to produce the official lithographs for the 1980 Lake Placid Winter Games, and the design of the official lapel pin.

In anticipation of the 1992 Albertville Winter Olympics, officials from the Savoie region of France came to Johnson’s studio at Des Artistes in New York to invite her to depict the Winter Games there. In March of 1993, she covered World Cup events in Lillehammer, Norway, alongside film crews from CBS to paint in advance of the 1994 Games.

Cecile Ryden Johnson passed away in 2010.

Cecile & Philip Johnson Foundation 
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