Johnson lived permanently in New York City from 1904 until 1920, making numerous trips to the west to gather source material for his works that were completed in his New York studio. In 1912 he joined cowboy artist Charles Russell on a sketching expedition to the Blackfoot Reservation east of Glacier National Park in Montana. He lived and worked on the Lazy 7 Ranch in Hayden, Colorado for a while, where he gained the title "Cow-Puncher Artist." Later he went southwest to work on painting Native Americans. In 1920, he moved to 22 Champion Place in Alhambra, California where he shared a studio with Clyde Forsythe. At this point Johnson's easel paintings became more popular than his illustrations so he concentrated in this medium. Together Johnson and Forsythe exhibited in the Biltmore Art Gallery started by Jack Wilkinson Smith at the Biltmore Hotel according to Edan Milton Hughes, Artists in California 1786 – 1940.