Obituaries : Anne Johnson; Patron of the Arts in Several Cities

Anne McDonnell Ford Johnson, a socialite and patron of the arts who was judged one of the world’s 10 best-dressed women, has died. She was 76.

Johnson, who was married to Henry Ford II for 24 years and to Los Angeles attorney Deane F. Johnson for the last 28 years, died Friday at a New York hospital of complications from a stroke.

As a member of the White House Fine Arts Committee during the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, Johnson helped restore Blair House, the official guest residence for state visitors, and helped redecorate the executive mansion.

Born in Rye, N.Y., one of 14 children of the James F. McDonnell family, Johnson was educated at the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Noroton, Conn., and the Grattanelli School in Sienna, Italy.

In 1940, she married Ford, the grandson of Henry Ford and himself the chairman of Ford Motor Co. in the 1950s and 1960s. They had three children, Charlotte, Ann and Edsel Ford II.

During her years in suburban Detroit, she was a founding member of the Detroit Institute of the Arts and was active in making the city a regular venue for New York’s Metropolitan Opera. The Fords divorced in 1964.

Always fashionably dressed as she pursued her charitable and artistic work, Johnson made the world best-dressed list in 1956 and in 1960 was named to the Fashion Hall of Fame.

When she married Johnson in 1968, she moved to Bel-Air, where she decorated a mansard-roofed mansion with her collection of French antiques. The couple moved to New York City in 1980.

During their years in Los Angeles, Johnson and her husband were familiar presences on the social and arts scene. She was especially active with the Art at Caltech program, where her husband was a trustee, and with the Blue Ribbon 400 of the Los Angeles County Music Center.

“The reason I went with these women was to have more of a knowledge of what is going on in a city that is growing and growing,” she told The Times in 1970 after carefully selecting the Music Center support group. “It puts two different phases of art together: music and the theater.”

Johnson also served as West Coast representative of the auction house Christie’s.

In addition to her husband and children, Johnson is survived by five sisters, two brothers, seven grandchildren and one great-grandchild.