A painter, printmaker and ceramic tile artist, George Johanson studied at the Museum Art School in Portland with further study in New York as well as London. He taught at the Museum Art School (now the Pacific Northwest College of Art) for 25 years until his retirement in 1980.

He has had more than 60 one man shows and is represented in public and private collections including the Portland Art Museum, the Smithsonian National Collection, in Washington, D.C. and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. He received the Oregon Governor's Arts Award. In 1992.

In 2002 the Portland Art Museum presented an exhibition of his drawings titled “Equivalents- Portraits of 80 Oregon Artists”. He was given a 60 year retrospective of his work at the Hallie Ford Museum, Salem in 2007. In 2010 the Pacific Northwest College of Art presented a major selection of his paintings titled “Seven Decades”.

Johanson continues active work in his Portland studio.