Brad Johns, the influential New York hair colorist whose dimensional blondes and signature “chunking” technique helped define the look of the 1990s, died Thursday at his home in West Hollywood, Calif. He was 70.

Johns had been battling prostate cancer for several years, according to close friends.

Over a career spanning more than four decades, Johns became one of the beauty industry’s best-known colorists, working with Christy Turlington, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, Kate Moss, Johnny Depp, Natasha Richardson, Vanessa Redgrave, Lucille Ball, Matthew Modine and Cindy Sherman, among others.

“He will truly be missed,” Sherman, the American artist, said in a statement. “His smile, his sense of humor, his wisdom and grace. Oh, it’s such sad news.” The two met at the Museum of Modern Art in 1997 during an exhibition of Sherman’s work and became friends.

Born in Pittsburgh in 1955, Johns grew up in Ohio View Acres and moved to New York in the 1970s to study acting at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts through the Stella Adler Studio of Acting. He later chronicled his life and career in “Dye: A Memoir of Art, Music, Faith, Family and Hair Color,” cowritten with Marianne Dougherty, a longtime friend and former American Salon editor and publisher.

But it was hair that became his calling. He had already been experimenting with color, doing classmates’ hair in the dorms, and eventually left acting to attend the Robert Fiance Hair Design Institute.

According to his memoir, Johns began his professional career at Cinandre, where Salvador Dalí was among his early clients, and later worked with Joni Mitchell. He went on to serve as color director at Clive Summers Salon, Jean Louis David at Henri Bendel and Oribe at Elizabeth Arden.

It was during his years at Oribe that Johns became especially known for his work with blonde and for “chunking,” a technique that used larger, strategically placed sections of lighter color to create dimension, including face-framing pieces, as an alternative to the more traditional frosting-cap highlights of the time.

“Frosting is for cakes, not hair,” Johns would playfully say, according to Dougherty.

“He loved a certain color — gold, buttery, beautiful. The golder, the better,” said Maria Choukairi, known as Ivy, a hair colorist at Mia Wagner Salon and Johns’ longtime protégé, who worked with him for more than two decades. “If you wanted gold, bright, buttery, sun-kissed hair, he was the man to go to.”

A turning point came with Turlington. Johns credited the supermodel with helping establish the technique after creating subtle caramel highlights around her face.

His work with Bessette Kennedy became another defining chapter. Johns began coloring her hair while she was working at Calvin Klein, gradually taking her darker hair to the golden blonde that became an enduring part of her image. He also colored her hair ahead of her 1996 wedding to John F. Kennedy Jr.

At Oribe, Johns worked with Moss, which led to an introduction to her then-boyfriend Depp. He darkened Depp’s naturally light brown hair to chestnut for his role in “Donnie Brasco” and worked with him on “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.”

In 1997, Johns opened the Brad Johns Salon on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, and after it closed, he worked with Avon, Saks Fifth Avenue and, later, Riccardo Maggiore Salon.

Johns retired from hair in 2019 and moved to L.A., where he turned increasingly to visual art, said his friends. He had long painted, made jewelry and studied metalsmithing, including at Parsons School of Design, according to Dougherty. In L.A., he took up fused glass at the Makery, an artist-run space downtown, eventually creating work under Brad Johns Glass.

“Brad was a creative genius, generous to a fault, funny as hell, and my biggest fan,” Dougherty said. “His unwavering support meant everything to me.”

“Brad brought beauty to everyone who sat in his chair and in his life,” said Jennifer Wolinetz, his friend and former publicist, who now works as an interior designer. “His gift was making you feel seen, celebrated and beautiful. He loved fiercely and gave generously, but his legacy was making sure you saw the beauty in yourself. He loved love and wanted the world to be filled with art and love and beauty and happiness.”