It was also around this time that he became one of the founding seven members of the Lukasgillet in his hometown of Lund in 1898. Later records seem to omit him from the list, possibly believing it unlikely that a 25 year old could have played so influential a part in the creation of the guild, but the short-lived August Johnsson seems to have had an uncanny knack for influencing those around him. In the same year he befriended Ernst Norlind (1877-1952), then a student of philosophy and left enough of an impression for him to give up his studies in favour of becoming an artist. 

Artistic dictionaries written during his life describe him as the “first representative among the painters of the Scanian twilight poetry of the 1890s” and how “he depicted his landscape with a poetic fervour.” They suggest that such fervour was not confined to painting and that he destroyed much of his work before his death in 1900.

His few surviving works are typically unsigned, but have been verified by his close friend and classmate Herman Österlund (1873-1964), whose romantic landscapes give a possible insight into how Johnsson’s career may have progressed, had he lived longer. 

In autumn 1899 he began showing symptoms of tuberculosis. His trip to Spain in early 1900 gave him brief respite from the humidity of southern Sweden. He returned to Lund in early August and died before the end of the month.