Johnny Willis is a non-binary art historian and curator. Willis serves as Associate Curator of The First Homosexuals: The Birth of a New Identity, 1869–1939 with Jonathan D. Katz, a landmark exhibition of over 300 artworks made following the introduction of the term “homosexual” in 1869 first shown at Wrightwood 659 (2025) and now on display at Kunstmuseum Basel (2026). Willis is also Associate Editor of the eponymous 22-essay anthology published by Phaidon & Monacelli Press (July 2025), which was named an Israel Fishman Non-Fiction Award Honor Title for the American Library Association’s Stonewall Book Awards. They graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania and hold an MA in Art History and Theory from the University of British Columbia. In 2024–2025, they were Curatorial Fellow at Wrightwood 659 in Chicago, and are now retained as a Curatorial Consultant for Alphawood Exhibitions, a subsidiary of Alphawood Foundation Chicago.

Willis is the author of the chapter “Not Naming: Lesbian Canadian Art and its Erasure” in The First Homosexuals catalogue, and served as advisor of Canadian Art for the project. They published the first monographic study on the contemporary Canadian painter Attila Richard Lukacs entitled “Radically Art Historical: Attila Richard Lukacs and the Weight of History” (UBC Libraries, 2023). Their methodological approach to art history works against common binary oppositions such as male/female, homo/heterosexual, past/present, and Eastern/Western. They write about modern and contemporary art, critical theory, ontology, psychoanalysis, queer studies, and lesbian history.