as an art collector johnsons eclectic eye supported avant-garde movements and young artists often before they became widely known his collection of american art was strong in abstract expressionism pop art minimalism neo-dada color field lyrical abstraction and neo-expressionism and he often donated important works from his collection to institutions like moma and other important private museums and university collections like the norton simon museum the sheldon museum of art and the iris  b gerald cantor center for visual arts at stanford university among many others